Grischa
by McStories
Summary: This will be a series of short stories revolving around a minor character: Cupcake. Slash. Cupcake/Chekov. Yep.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: This is going to be where I put my Cupcake stories. I never intended to write about this dude, but now that I have I can't seem to stop writing about him, so. It's become a series. Because I have no imagination, I am calling it the Grischa series._

_So every chapter is actually a short story all its own. This first one is the first thing I ever wrote about this character I had no interest in. The pebble that started a frigging avalance. _

_Anyway, here. He's a minor character most people hate, but. You know. Have some Cupcake anyway. _

_

* * *

_

_Warnings for this chapter: Nothing, really. If you're easily offended and live in South Dakota, maybe don't read it? Though, for the record, I've lived in South Dakota. I like South Dakota. I'm not saying everyone who grows up in South Dakota is like this. I'm saying everyone from the future who grows up in a bastard family in South Dakota and is called Cupcake by Jim Kirk is like this. And I'm not even saying that, really, 'cause Cupcake isn't mine and it's all fiction and blah blah._

_Notes: Okay, so I have NO IDEA where this came from. I had like no interest in Cupcake until he sprang into my head full-formed as just the guy in this story, cliches and stereotypery and horrible grammar and all. I just...lord. It's way too long and I don't know who this person even is. I don't even know, guys. Really._

* * *

Five Things Everyone Knows About Greg 'Cupcake' Harris:

1. He's big. Everything about the guy is big. Tall, square shoulders, big jaw, big voice. Strong as an ox. It's the first thing people notice about him. The identifier they use to point him out in crowds, or to warn new crewmen about who to avoid. "You can't miss him, he's the oversized ape in the huge red shirt." He even carries himself big, holding himself straight-spined and squaring his shoulders. Everything about him (and it's a smirking Gaila who makes it common knowledge that yeah, that means _every_thing) is big.

2. He's violent. Not only Security Officer violent, but really alarmingly violent. His instinct in almost any situation is to hit first and ask later. He's been known to knock people out with a single hammy fist to the jaw if they sneak up too quietly. He'll throw a few punches just because someone comes at him too fast. He's never had a disagreement that doesn't end with some show of strength – when he can't fight back he'll crack his knuckles, loom too close, threaten in whatever way he can. Nobody wants to fight with Cupcake, which means nobody really talks much to him at all. No one but his fellow security guards, and even they watch their words around him.

3. He's dumb. Not an idiot, maybe, but not smart. Unless the conversation is about fighting or fucking he never bothers joining in, and he'll stand around with his forehead wrinkled in utter confusion while talk goes on around him. If you tell him a joke he won't get it. If you ask his advice about any given situation, and the answer isn't 'punch him', the guy's useless. He graduated from the Academy, sure, but the course load in Security isn't as taxing as a lot of the other fields of study, and hell, maybe some the instructors made an exception and eased him through a few classes; because

4. He is good at his job. Damned good at it. Everyone admits that, however they feel about him otherwise. He's got sharp instincts about danger, and he'll throw that massive weight of his between anyone in a Starfleet uniform and anything threatening them. Even Kirk, who everyone knows _really_ doesn't like the guy, puts him on away teams more often than not. He can barely string a sentence together and there isn't a personable thing about him, but he's at the top of any list of any crewman on the ship if asked who they want watching their back in danger.

5. He doesn't like a single person in the universe, at least as far as anyone on the Enterprise can tell. He talks to his fellow security guards now and then, but given an option he doesn't bother talking to anyone. He doesn't show up at any of the crew's many optional social gatherings, and he stands around and glares whenever he's forced to attend some event. He hasn't put in a single comm hour to call home since the start of their mission. He never gets messages from friends or family on earth, and the people who knew him at the Academy remember him spending all his free time on his own, usually in the gym. He doesn't outright ignore people, but if you don't talk to him first he'll never talk to you, and if you don't keep the talk going the words shrivel up and die a hard, fast death. Gaila, the one person who actually claims to 'know' him in the biblical sense, admits that he'd been drunk and she'd maybe used some of her genetics to sway the issue. ("Come on," she adds when people gape at her in utter confusion. "Powerful guys are hot. When they don't talk back that just makes it better.")

* * *

And the one thing Cupcake knows about everyone else:

Everyone else doesn't know shit.

He isn't dumb like people think. He's stupid, yeah, but he isn't some idiot. He knows how people look at him and what they think, and mostly he doesn't much care. Because they don't know shit about him.

Yeah, Greg's big. Isn't his fault. His whole family's big. His brothers are bigger than him, mostly. Big midwestern farm family growing up in the middle of South Dakota. Being big's a good thing back home, when sometimes you've got to wade through three feet of snow, or manhandle a heifer into a pen, or wrench the seeder vents into place on the tractor because some rock or something knocks them loose.

He'd have to lug his dad into the house or up to bed when he drank himself half-dead, and a small guy couldn't have done that. He'd fight with his brothers all the fucking time, and sometimes with pissed-off locals who knew his family and hated them all and would jump any Harris they saw even though Greg himself never did anything to them anyway.

It isn't like being big means anything. It means he's big, that's all. He's known a lot of mean people in the world who are small. He's known mean women and mean kids and mean smart people.

Size doesn't mean shit.

Meanest woman he's ever known was his own momma. She wasn't big at all, she was like a skeleton, drinking all the time and forgetting to eat, getting hopped up on her pills and dancing all night in town. At least she was easier to carry than his dad when she'd pass out.

Mean, though. She didn't like Greg or her other kids, or her husband, and she was never shy about saying so. Used to bitch about being the only woman around – like it's Greg's fault he was born a boy. She would drag him around when he was a kid and go to bars that would let kids in the door during the day. She'd hang around the same mean-faced group of people and do nothing but drink beer and bitch about the idiot kid she still had to lug around because his dad couldn't keep it in his pants that last time.

She always knew he was an idiot, but it wasn't ever a secret. Teachers would call her and his dad up and say 'your youngest one's the dumbest of the lot' and they didn't give a shit. Wasn't like he had to be smart to manage the farm. And that's what they did in that family. Ran the farm. They were born on the plain and they'd die on the plain, and there was no shame in that. Wasn't anything that got wrote up in the papers, no, but they put food on tables all over the state, and that wasn't anything to be ashamed of.

They sure as hell didn't join up with fucking Starfleet to fly around in space. That wasn't for them, that was for fucking liberal idiots who always thought every place was better than their own planet. Let some green-skinned alien come around Hubert, South Dakota. They'd learn what real men were like.

Hell, wasn't just the aliens. Fucking foreigners, fucking dark-skins or slant-eyes or marble-mouthed Euro-fuckers. Women who didn't know their place, men who thought they were better than everyone else. There was nobody the Harris family didn't hate. Greg was taught that hard, and young, and was reminded of it all the time.

He only had one person when he was younger ever show him anything like nice, this doc from in town who patched them all up sometimes when they got hurt worse than whiskey and an ace bandage could fix. Once Greg's dad broke a bottle over his head and the doc, as he checked his eyes and did some kind of weird shit to make sure he wasn't brain-damaged (though who could tell with Greg, har har) looked at him as he put up his things. Looked real sad, too, though Greg wasn't nobody to him.

"Things ain't got to be like this, son. You ever think about that?"

He said no, because he didn't ever think about it. The doc talked to him a little bit about all the places out there and all the things he could try. Asked him, how did he really know he was happy where he was until he knew what else was out there?

Greg didn't think about it much, since being happy hadn't ever been something he worried about. But a few days later there were some kids in town. Fleet Fuckers, his brothers called them, corn-fed farmboys just like them who suddenly thought they were hot shit because they joined up and put on a fancy uniform.

Greg's brothers heard there were some of those Fleet Fuckers in town and they figured to go teach them about real men. Wasn't the first time. Greg watched them go and thought, how do they know they're real men unless they know what other kind of men are out there?

Wasn't much of a thought, wasn't anything big. But he heard the next day from some talk as he went through town that one of them Fleet Fuckers was in the hospital thanks to those asshole Harris brothers. Starfleet was sending people out to investigate and everything.

If anyone was to ever ask him, and no one ever does, Greg would say he doesn't know why the hell he went to that hospital. He doesn't know why he hung around the halls near the room they put the Fleeter guy in, and he doesn't know why he got in his three brothers' ways when they showed up to shut that Fleeter up before he could point any fingers, red from beer and pissed off at everyone who wasn't them.

He just knows that he doesn't like his dad much, or his mom. He doesn't much like his brothers. Sometimes he thought those aliens on the news seemed interesting. Sometimes he liked the idea of flying around the stars.

When the Fleeters left Hubert, South Dakota, Greg left with them. Signed some papers and put on a uniform and went to a classroom to learn what he had to know to get on a starship and fly around the stars.

Now Greg never gets letters from home cause he doesn't have family anymore. They don't want him and he doesn't want them.

He never talked to anyone his whole life who didn't hate him, so now he doesn't know how to talk to people at all. Sometimes when he sees an alien he thinks 'green-skinned bastard' even when they aren't really green, and he knows it isn't true but his dad's in his head sometimes as loud as any of Greg's own thoughts.

If his dad ever finds out he fucked one, he'd probably kill Greg himself. Even if the alien he fucked is beautiful like some lady on TV, even with green skin like she's got.

Greg won't tell his dad, though. He's never told anyone, since he doesn't remember much and he kind of likes thinking about it now and then, about what it probably was like. And he still sees that green girl around sometimes, and she seems nice even if she never talks to him or anything.

So.

Yeah.

Greg's big. He's stupid, and he gets in a lot of fights, and he doesn't have friends and he isn't good at anything in the entire world except getting into fights and stopping smaller guys from getting hurt.

But he's trying. And that's something nobody seems to give a shit about, that he's a fucking world away from what he was raised to be, and he's _trying_.

Nobody who knows him now knows anything about Hubert, South Dakota, or his momma hating him, or his dad hitting him, or his brothers or the townies or that one doctor who told him there were other things out there because he was the first one not to care that Greg's an idiot.

So Greg doesn't care what everyone thinks about him, because the one thing he knows is that people don't really know shit.


	2. Chapter 2

_Second story, the place where slash begins._

_Summary: Pavel Chekov makes an unlikely friend at the academy. Kirk cockblocks. _

_Inspired by a request at the Kink meme: Kirk catches wind of their relationship and assumes that Cupcake must've bullied poor innocent Pavel Chekov into having a relationship with him. Actually, it turns out that Cupcake is the gentlest top ever and loves his little Russian very much._

* * *

"Come on," Greg says, gruff, when the kid just looks at him and doesn't move from where he fell. "Infirmary's pretty close."

The kid – and he's a fucking kid, no doubt about that – stares at Greg's hand when he reaches out, but slowly lifts a trembling arm and lets Greg pull him to his feet. He winces and his arms fold over his stomach, and for a moment he just sways there.

Greg waits, looking around the grounds idly in case any asshole out there is paying to much attention. He's been in enough fights to know the kid'll either puke or faint or he'll stay on his feet, and he'll do it in the next minute or two. Greg can wait around.

"I thought..." The kid stays on his feet, even stumbles the few steps to where Greg's waiting. "...you were one of them."

Greg frowns down at him. "You mean one of Lepinski's pals?"

The kid nods shakily. He's got blood going down his lip and he brushes his fingertips over his mouth unsteadily.

Greg takes his arm – he stays on his feet, that's great, but he still looks ready to pass out. "Well. I'm not. I don't do that kind of shit."

"You get in fights..." The kid stumbles when Greg started leading him along towards the infirmary.

Russian kid, Greg remembers. Some kind of genius. He's like sixteen or something, and his English is lousy, and the kids around here all want to be The Special One, and can't fucking hack it when some child comes around stealing the glory.

Greg gets into fights, sure, but never against kids. Never out of jealousy because a sixteen-year-old keeps getting his name in the journals. Greg was never gonna be in any journals anyway.

Greg just smirks at the kid, but the smirk fades when he sees that smeared blood tracking down his chin. "I don't like it when big people pick on little people. It's bullshit."

The kid hesitates, his feet moving a little less evenly. "I can fight."

"Not when there's five of them and one of you. Especially when one of you is like a half of one of them."

The kid's eyes come up, stubborn and proud, and Greg smiles but it's not mean or anything. He isn't laughing at the kid. He probably could've fought one or two of them, for a while. That hot chick at the bar a couple years back could've probably fended off that bitch Kirk when he was drunk and slobbering all over her.

But Greg isn't the type to wait around and find out. You don't hit on a woman after she's already said no. You don't beat up some kid just for being a kid.

The kid studies him. His eyes are real bright, green and kind of blue when the sun hits him right. He meets Greg's eyes and that pride relaxes after a sec, and he smiles painfully around his swelling lip.

"You are training for security?" he asks.

Greg nods. "Yeah."

"You will be very good at your job."

Greg's feet stop moving. He looks down at the kid. He's young, and Russian, and smart, and Greg's used to being around big tough jocks, like Greg.

But he smiles and it feels strange on his face, 'cause no one ever told him before that that he was good at anything. Not once.

"Jesus Christ! Chekov, is that you?"

Greg whips his gaze around fast, still a little on edge from shouting at Lepinski and pushing around his dumb-ass friends until they left the kid alone.

He gets tense. Speak of the fucking devil.

Jim Kirk's running up, followed by that sour-faced pal of his from Medical. He runs right up to the kid and practically tears him out of Greg's grasp, checking him over like he's the kid's mom or something.

"Shit, kid, not again. Bones?"

"Yeah." The Medical guy gets right up into the kid's space, checking out his eyes and probing at that cut on his mouth.

Kirk turns suddenly and glowers at Greg. "What the fuck did you do, cupcake?"

Greg's hands curl into fists, but he doesn't want to punch this guy out in front of the kid. "I didn't do anything, Kirk. Butt out."

"Jim, we oughtta get him to the infirmary. Looks like he took a couple of hits to the head."

Before Greg can argue – that's where he was taking the kid already, and what the fuck business is it of theirs – the Med guy's got his arm around the kid and is leading him away fast.

Greg doesn't stop them, because even though the Med guy talks like an asshole he's real gentle with the kid. And he's Medical, so.

Kirk glowers at Greg even as he takes a few steps backwards to follow them. "You stay away from him, asshole. And tell your bully friends to keep away. He's a fucking kid, man."

Greg glares right back at him but stands there, annoyed and a little...not hurt, because he's not a fucking woman, but something that makes him feel like shit.

Until Kirk catches up to the other two, and the kid – Chekov, Greg tells himself – looks over Kirk's shoulder back at Greg, and mouths 'thank you' really clearly, kind of smiling as he says it.

Greg grins.

* * *

He's surprised to see the kid again, running like someone's chasing him. No one is, though, and the kid's got sweats and a t-shirt on and runs like he's used to running.

He slows when he sees Greg, and smiles suddenly like he realizes who Greg is. He swings over, slowing to a jog and then a stop when he reaches the bench Greg is sitting on.

"Good morning!"

Greg grins, because yeah, it's a pretty good morning, and the kid – Chekov – looks a lot happier than last time.

"Hey," he says, smiling like a dumbass.

Chekov sits down beside Greg, hardly breathing hard even as fast as he was running. "You are far from the campus."

Greg shrugs. "So're you." He looks out at the waterfront. San Francisco is fucking pretty, though he'd never say that out loud to any of his meat-head friends. He likes the water, likes to sit and watch it sometimes when he needs to stop thinking about shit.

Chekov looks out where he's looking, and for a minute they don't speak.

Then Greg can't help himself. "So you're friends with Kirk, huh?"

"Kirk?" Chekov looks back at him. "Not friends. We were in a class together, last year." He smiles, small and crooked and a whole lot happier than last time Greg saw him. "Kirk is not friends with anyone but Cadet McCoy, I think. But he looks out for me. He thinks I am too young to be here."

"Yeah?" Well, hell, Greg isn't about to agree with anything that asshole thinks. "I don't think you're too young."

Chekov's small smile is suddenly bigger and brighter. "I don't think I am, either. I am doing well, when I am left alone."

Greg thinks about that, wondering if the kid's telling him to get lost. But no, doesn't make sense since it's the kid who came up to him.

Then he remembers Lepinski and understands. "Yeah, well, some people don't like to see anybody doing good."

"Not you, though?"

Greg shrugs. "I'm a big enough loser on my own, doesn't matter how well or how badly anyone else is doing."

Chekov frowns, and it changes his whole face. "You are not a loser. What kind of thing is that to say?"

Greg almost blushes. "Uh. I didn't mean...I just meant, people see you and get jealous because they'll never be able to top you. And I don't have to worry about topping anybody."

Chekov waves his hand like he's rejecting Greg's words. "I am top at physics. And running. I am obviously not top in security, or fighting."

Greg grins at that. "Even your pal Kirk couldn't have fought off all five of Lepinski's crew."

"But you can." Chekov smiles like he just aced some test. "So you are top at that."

Greg's grin gets bigger, and his cheeks get warmer, and even though he knows this kid doesn't really know anything about him, it's still kind of nice to hear something like that.

"I am Pavel," the kid says suddenly, sticking out his hand.

Pavel. Greg sounds that out in his head. Like Paul. Maybe it's Russian for Paul or something. Whatever, he likes it better than Chekov.

He shakes the kid's hand. "Greg."

Pavel doesn't let him go as fast as most guys would. "Thank you again, Greg. For your help."

And Greg hears his stupid mouth open and words come out, and he thinks even as he talks, _I'm a fucking idiot._ "There's a coffee place a few blocks down. Do you, uh...you wanna get some coffee?"

He doesn't feel like an idiot when Pavel beams at him and nods his head.

He doesn't feel like an idiot the whole time they sit around drinking coffee and sharing a bagel. They talk about the Academy, and they're in such different fields of study that it's like talking about two different places, and it's interesting.

Greg doesn't feel like an idiot until they're closer to the campus and Pavel realizes what time it is and runs ahead to get a shower before his first class, and suddenly Jim Kirk comes sauntering up to Greg and watching Pavel run like he's running away. Like he's trying to escape.

Kirk catches his arm and stares at him hard, and says, "I told you to leave that kid alone."

Greg only feels like an idiot because he doesn't really know what to say in answer, because he's a big idiot security guard and Pavel's this genius science guy and he knows Kirk would never believe they were talking like friends. 'Cause Greg hardly believes it himself.

* * *

Then he opens the door to his dorm one day and there's Pavel on the other side. He's got a bruise around his eye and his lip's busted again, and Greg can't help but feel this sudden kind of fury coming over him.

Pavel says, "Will you show me how to stop them?"

So Greg does what he can. He's a big dumb jock, sure, but he's top in his class when it comes to defensive combat, and he talks the prof into giving him the passcode to the gym so he can take Pavel down late in the evening when it's closed.

The floors are mats and the walls are mirrors, and Greg isn't good at much but he's surprisingly good at twisting what he knows to fit someone who's smaller than most every potential attacker.

He shows Pavel how to balance himself to move fast, how to use his attacker's moves against him. He shows Pavel how a guy as big as Greg has a thousand weaknesses 'cause of his size, and shows Pavel how useful speed is.

Pavel learns as fast as he learns anything. He's never gonna be able to take on five oversized shits at once, but towards the end of the term he's able to dart and lunge and evade well enough that Greg just can't get a punch in even when he really tries.

He's so fucking proud of Pavel by the end of term that he doesn't want to stop the lessons for the holidays.

"I am not going home," Pavel confesses when Greg mentions it. "My family can't afford it, and my papa has to work. He can't make time, so it's best to stay here so he doesn't feel guilty."

Greg says 'oh' and that's going to be the end of the conversation, but as Pavel heads out of the gym he speaks again fast. "I'm actually not going anywhere either."

Pavel stops and turns back. "Really?"

It's weird, 'cause it's the first time Greg's said anything about it out loud. Most people don't care where he's going for breaks.

So it's weird saying it, and it makes Greg a little nervous and a little upset like he was when he read his dad's letter that second year.

"My family...they don't really want me around anymore."

Pavel looks shocked. So shocked, actually, that Greg's upset feeling kind of starts fading. "Why not?"

Greg shrugs. "'Cause Starfleet's for liberal alien-loving fags, not real men. Because I should've joined the Army if I wanted to wear a uniform, and I should've agreed with my dad and my brothers all those times they said somebody was gonna go to hell or needed to get their asses kicked because they were different."

Pavel doesn't say anything, and Greg can't really look at him anymore so he doesn't know what his face looks like. It's stupid, this whole thing. It's fucking stupid to be so hurt that his dad hates him, when he hates his dad anyway. He doesn't even know why he's saying all this, except that nobody's ever asked before. Nobody ever cared.

He glares at the ground, his eyes hot and itchy. "My dad didn't raise his sons to be Fleeters or queers. So I must not be his son."

Pavel's feet are suddenly right there where Greg's looking, and Greg looks up enough to see Pavel's face.

Pavel looks at him almost like he's sad. He reaches out and puts his hand on Greg's cheek, real gentle, and it's the weirdest kind of touch Greg's ever felt. It makes Greg feel a little dizzy, just like that, and he doesn't want to pull away but he wishes he knew what was going on.

"Sometimes," Pavel says, and his voice is soft and low like they're sharing a secret, "I think I'm the only person in the world who's actually met you."

Greg's holding his breath and he doesn't know why. "What do you mean by that?"

"I listen to Kirk talk about you, or some of the professors. Or you, even, when you talk about yourself. And I don't recognize the person you talk about. Your father...did he ever even meet you? I don't understand it."

Greg starts to realize that the words are good, that it's a kind of compliment. He feels his mouth twitch upwards and he shrugs. "I guess you don't care about the stuff they care about?"

"I care," Pavel answers, his cheeks going pink. "Just not in the same way."

And then he leans up, all quick-like, and Greg feels something pushing up against his mouth. It's there and gone, just a split second of warmth and pressure.

Soon as he can figure out what it was Pavel's halfway across the gym making his escape.

Greg watches him go. He realizes his fingers are touching his mouth, and remembers when Pavel did something just like that the first time he met him. He smiles to himself.

Their last late-night at the gym before the break – before they can spend all kinds of time training and talking and whatever – the doors burst open right when Greg's got Pavel down on the mat, and fucking Jim Kirk and his medical buddy are suddenly piling in. Kirk's giggling like some drunk idiot who thinks he's breaking the rules, and the doc guy is mumbling like he's irritated even though he can't keep his hands off Kirk.

Then Kirk sees them – Pavel on his back, Greg over him, pinning his hands.

* * *

Greg's gonna get kicked out of the Academy, one fucking term before graduation. But Kirk can shout all he wants, Pavel's more than capable of explaining what was actually happening. In the end Pavel and Greg set up a demonstration of the lessons in front of Greg's SA and the head of the security department and a bunch of the staff there who were deliberating about kicking him out.

Pavel slams him around a few times, and Greg gives a couple of pointers because they said they wanted to see what the lessons were like, and that's what they were like.

Jim Kirk leaves for the holidays with the his best friend from Medical. He comes back probably expecting Greg to be history. Instead there's these fliers around for self-defense lessons for any cadets who don't have to take combat training in their class loads, and Greg's got a citation in his record.

Pavel says he's proud of him, and he comes to most of those classes usually to act as the small guy when Greg needs to demonstrate some techniques. Most of the people who sign up for lessons are girls, or skinny guys like Pavel. People who can't necessarily fight off bullies on their own, and Greg realizes teaching those people how to take on attackers is maybe the best thing he's ever done.

He's kind of shy about Pavel outside those classes, and he keeps thinking Pavel will laugh at him for it but Pavel never does. Pavel's just seventeen but he's got all this confidence about the things he wants to do. He's got all this confidence about Greg. But Greg doesn't have that. He's had a few drunk fumbles with farmgirls back home, and he had one fucking shitty experience getting drunk off his ass and getting fucked by some asshole civilian he met in a bar.

That's not a lot, and sometimes when he's talking to Pavel in Pavel's one-person palace of a dorm room, or sitting by him watching vids, or whatever, he thinks Pavel's waiting on him to do something that he just can't do.

He doesn't want to fuck Pavel, because he knows from memory that it fucking hurts. He'd let Pavel fuck him, though, since Greg's a big tough security guy and he can handle some pain. But how the fuck do you get that across in conversation?

In the end Pavel mentions to him that his close friends back in Russia call him 'Pasha', like a nickname or something. So Greg calls him Pasha because he figures that's what Pavel wants.

And just like that Pavel knocks him flat on his back on the hard little couch in his dorm room and they kiss like they're starving for it and Greg can't even think enough to worry about who's going to do what. There's no room on the couch so Greg stands up with Pavel fastened to him like he can't stop kissing him for a minute, and they end up back on Pavel's bed somehow.

Greg is on top of him and before he can worry about being too heavy Pavel clenches his arms around Greg and pulls him down closer, harder. Groaning like he gets off on Greg being so big.

Which is fucking fine with Greg, because he can sort of line up against Pavel and push into him and Pavel can push back and they don't even get their slacks undone when they get off the first time.

Nothing about it hurts.

Greg doesn't like to let Pavel out of his sight after that. Like Pavel belongs to him now in some way he can't shut off. He looks at Pavel and he thinks 'mine', and it's unbelievable. Sometimes he says it, when Pavel's on him, when they're under the sheets and grinding together, or on the couch with Greg's hand in Pavel's pants and Pavel gasping and writhing back into his chest.

Sometimes he whispers 'mine', and sometimes that's the thing that makes Pavel come.

If he doesn't know why a brilliant guy like Pavel is with a lunkhead like him, at least he's not dumb enough to ask. He just wants it to keep going as long as fucking possible.

Greg knows that just because Vulcan gets attacked during Kirk's little hearing thing doesn't mean it's Kirk's fault, necessarily, but it's still easy to blame Kirk when they're all running to get onto their assigned ships and he loses track of Pavel and wonders if it's for good.

* * *

Ray Lee was the closest thing to a friend Greg had at the Academy, besides Pavel the last year or so.

He met Ray first year, doing the same classes as Greg, looking to become Security together. Ray's the first Asian guy he ever really knew – isn't much cultural diversity on the farm where Greg grew up. But Ray's fucking cool. He's a big guy like Greg, doesn't have much family who still talked to him, like Greg.

He told Greg that first year that his parents were some kind of math geniuses, and everyone figured he'd been mixed up at the hospital and somewhere there was some big dumb couple raising up the skinny little math whiz he got mixed up with.

Greg knows something about that.

Anyway, Ray's real first name is like Raikuno or some shit, but everyone calls him Ray and he doesn't speak Korean around them like some of the foreign kids do. He's a fucking soldier, same as Greg, and they kick a lot of ass together the first few years.

Ray's his friend. First one he ever had.

Ray doesn't come back up with the away team. Kirk comes back, McCoy, Spock. Sulu comes back, which Greg's glad about for Pasha's sake. But Ray doesn't come back.

Porter, the head of security, gathers them all for the news, and throws together the usual bullshit memorial. Kirk comes by and says a few words about the sacrifices they're all willing to make and how it means so much and what the fuck ever.

Greg stays away from Pasha for a few days because he worries about going over there mad. Because Greg's dad would smack Greg's mom around when he was pissed off, and what if that's something genetic? Greg doesn't want to yell or hit or even be angry around Pavel, so he stays back for a while.

But Pavel finds him the observation room one evening. Staring down at the planet they're still orbiting, staring like he'd be able to see where Ray's remains are lying.

"I'm sorry," Pavel says, and Greg knows he is.

But Greg can't stop himself. "If it was you Kirk wouldn't have left."

Pasha comes up to him, like he isn't afraid even though Greg's so angry. "What?"

Greg stares out the viewscreen. "If it was you who died. Anybody on the fucking bridge crew. He wouldn't have left. Not until everyone responsible was dead or arrested. Not without your body."

"That isn't true!"

"Yeah. It is. We all fucking know it. Everybody in the department knows it. You wear a red shirt on Jim Kirk's ship, you better update your will every morning over coffee." Greg turns to him then, because he is mad but he doesn't think he's the kind of mad that'll hit. "It's our job, you know. Stepping in front and protecting everyone else. We don't fucking hesitate. But we know he'd fight for any of you, any of his alpha crew, harder than he ever fights for us. And sometimes that's hard."

"Greg." Pasha comes right up to him, not afraid at all, and puts his arms around him.

Greg feels himself go hot. His face, his eyes. He feels warmth on his face and plants his eyes in Pasha's shirt to hide it. "He was my friend," he says, muffled and high and uneven.

But Pasha understands. He doesn't shush him or tell him 'it's okay' like people do sometimes when it's clearly not fucking okay. He just holds on to him.

Until there's another voice from the door.

"That's what you think?"

Greg jumps, pulls away from Pasha to scrub at his face, and glares at the captain. He can't say anything, because it's the captain. He can't hate Kirk now that Kirk's his superior.

Kirk looks bothered, anyway, but hell if Greg knows why. Greg doesn't answer, just looks back at that planet like he could find Ray down there somehow and bring him back himself.

Pasha steps right up beside him and slips a hand around his waist, and next time Greg thinks to look over, Kirk's gone.

But they stay in orbit over that planet. Somehow Ray's body gets beamed up inside this ceremonial casket thing from the aliens, and Porter gets them all together to give them an update about a pack of criminals from the planet who've been arrested for the murder of a Starfleet Officer. Ray's murder.

Starfleet won't let them bring the killers up to the ship. Some kind of diplomatic rule that says the planet gets to keep them in their own jails.

But it's something.

Kirk's speeches at the next couple of memorials are different. When he talks about their sacrifices he seems to mean it. Maybe he always meant it, Greg doesn't know, but he doesn't doubt it anymore.

Greg doesn't have to work so hard not to hate Kirk whenever he sees him.

* * *

Then it's Greg's turn to be at the other end of a phaser on an away mission, and even though he's only burned in the arm and McCoy's down there when it happens and says he's gonna be fine, Pasha's still in the transporter room waiting when they all beam back.

Pasha doesn't even wait until everyone's gone before he throws himself at Greg and kisses him like he thought he'd never see him again. Greg can feel everybody staring but for a minute or two he doesn't give a shit. If Pasha doesn't care who knows about them than Greg sure as hell doesn't.

Kirk shows up after McCoy's chased Pasha out of the infirmary. He looks Greg up and down and asks McCoy how he's doing, and comes over to Greg once McCoy gives him the same might-need-some-therapy-for-nerve-damage-but-gonna-be-fine rap he gave Greg.

"Good job down there today, Lieutenant Harris."

Greg shrugs, and it hurts so he tells himself not to do that again.

"You know...Ensign Chekov has a lot of friends on this ship."

Greg stares at him. But yeah, he knows that. Everyone loves Pasha. It's hard not to.

Greg loves him.

Kirk goes on, his eyes strange and sharp on Greg. "There are a lot of people looking out for him. A lot of people who would get pretty pissed off if anything happened to him."

Greg frowns at him, because he knows all this shit already. He's first on the fucking list, after all.

Kirk seems like he's waiting for something. When Greg doesn't say anything he keeps going. "All I'm trying to say, cup...er. Lieutenant. Is that if someone was hurting Pavel in some way..."

"What?" Greg sits up fast. He plucks the sensors off his arm when the bed starts beeping. "Who the fuck is hurting Pasha? Why didn't he say anything?" He scowls as he fights the painkillers McCoy gave him, trying to stay upright.

Pasha hasn't been upset or anything lately. Maybe someone bothered him while Greg was on the planet? Maybe that's why he was right there when Greg got back.

Son of a bitch. Greg will kill them, whoever it fucking is. Nobody hurts Pasha, god damn it.

McCoy's suddenly there, stopping Greg with surprisingly strong hands when Greg tries to stand up.

"Whoa, Harris, the hell do you think you're going?"

"Get off me, doc." Damn it, fucking medicine. His head's fuzzy, but he can see Pasha in his mind clear as anything. He can see him that first time they met, sprawled on the ground with Matt Lepinski ready to put his boot in the kid's gut again.

Kirk doesn't get it. If someone is hurting Pasha it isn't something they have to sit around talking about. They have to find the fucker and kill the fucker and make sure Pasha is okay. Because he has to be okay. All the rest of it doesn't matter if he isn't okay...

He catches himself saying some of this shit out loud, slurring it almost. The ache in his neck doesn't register for another few seconds, and he realizes McCoy got him with a hypo when he was struggling.

Greg isn't much good after that. He sinks back on the bed and can't keep his eyes open, but he thinks he hears McCoy's voice all angry.

"What the hell did you do, Jim? For Christ's sake."

And he thinks he hears Kirk saying something about 'feeling him out' or something, and he thinks he hears an audible smack and Kirk saying 'ow!' and McCoy throwing him out on his ass. But maybe that's the medicine.

He hopes not.


	3. Chapter 3

_Summary: The original title of this story was, Five Times Pavel Tried to Explain it to People, and the One Time They Saw for Themselves. That's as good a summary as any._

* * *

At first it was amusing. It was something Pavel laughed off with rolling eyes. He had brought it upon himself, after all, when he kissed Greg in front of half the bridge crew and made their relationship public knowledge. That had been Pavel's choice to make (though it felt less like a choice and more like gut-clenching fear caused by the '_Enterprise, we need a medical team on standby, _damn_ it, cupcake, hold _still' that filtered through the bridge and sent Pavel flying through the corridors to get to the transporter room), so Pavel would just have to be graceful in accepting the fallout.

* * *

One – From Scotty, which Pavel hadn't expected. It was rare that Scotty paid any attention to interpersonal dealings on his ship. If it didn't beep or require re-wiring, he usually paid it no mind.

The very day of the away mission when Greg took a disrupter blast in the arm, Pavel found himself back in engineering once McCoy had kicked him out of sickbay for hovering. He needed to stay occupied until Greg was discharged, and engineering was the best place on the ship to lose himself in some project or another.

"Evening, laddie." Scotty found him there and approached with his usual crooked smile. "How's that security bloke doing?"

"Doctor McCoy says he will be fine," Pavel answered, steady, through a smile, though his cheeks grew warmer with every word. He could hear the relief hiding in his voice, though, and wondered if Scotty could.

Greg would be fine, but nerve damage meant recovery time, physical therapy.

It meant someone had aimed a disrupter at Greg – at his Greg – and fired. It still made him feel shaky.

Scotty just gave that same crooked smile, like there was some joke there, some humor that no one but Scotty ever caught. Sometimes Pavel wondered if that was just Scotty, or perhaps some element of Scottish behavior in general.

No doubt Scotland was a very different place than Russia.

"Ye'd best be off to bed, Pavel," Scotty said finally, patting him on the shoulder with easy familiarity. "From the looks of things you have a stressful day. But...er. Pavel." He didn't let Pavel get too far towards the door before he kept going.

Pavel glanced back, and hesitated when he saw that Scotty's near-constant smile had faded, and he seemed somehow uncertain. "What is it?"

"Well..." Scotty flashed a sheepish grin after a moment. "Bloody tongue-tied, isn't that a wonder?"

Pavel smiled, but his nerves were bubbling up again. "Say what you want to, Scotty."

"You're a bairn, laddie." Scotty was getting fairly red-faced himself, ducking his head and scratching at the back of his neck. "It's not something I notice a lot, nor something I care a thing about. Ye knew that. But...are ye even old enough to be getting your leg over? With...that sort of bloke?"

Pavel was surprised, yes, but only because it was Scotty. He expected the question from everyone else.

But he answered bluntly, the way Scotty best understood. "My mama was a year younger than I am when I was born. Some might say she and my papa got married too young, but..." He shrugged, smiling in faint memory. "She was a happy and a good mama until she died. What is sex compared to that?"

Scotty nodded, his smile returning. If he didn't seem entirely convinced, Pavel didn't blame him. It had taken he and Greg a while to get where they were, he couldn't expect understanding in a single day.

* * *

Two - "He's gone. Released," came the gruff answer before Pavel could even speak.

Pavel just smiled, because 'released' meant that he was healthy enough to leave. "Thank you, doctor."

"Uh. Kid. Hang on a sec."

Pavel turned back in the doorway, nerves fluttering again instantly. "He's alright, isn't he?"

McCoy blinked. "Oh, Harris? Yeah, as good as anyone's gonna be with a phaser taking a chunk out of his arm." At Pavel's wince he grimaced and closed the distance between them. "He's fine, or he will be if he listens to me and completes a course of therapy."

"He will." Pavel answered easily. Greg was stubborn and proud at times, but his job was everything to him. He wouldn't endanger it.

"That's not what I..." McCoy sighed, scowling at a place just slightly over Pavel's head. "Look, this is none of my business in some ways, but in some ways it is. It's my job to look out for you kids. I've gotta keep you safe and healthy, so..."

Pavel studied him. McCoy was gruff, yes, but Pavel had rarely been nervous with him. He was gruff the way Pavel's father was gruff. His papa would always rush to get Pavel anything he needed, and he would do it with a glare on his face, and Pavel never felt less than loved.

McCoy dragged his eyes down to Pavel. "You and Harris."

"Yes, doctor."

"...is it a new thing?"

"Since the Academy," Pavel confessed – he had been sixteen, it had always been legal, and he felt no shame in it.

"Jesus, kid." Obviously McCoy didn't agree. "You're a fucking baby."

Pavel shrugged. "I am older than him in a few ways."

"Ain't gonna argue with that one. I just..." McCoy heaved a sigh and turned on his heel, stalking back towards his office. "I guess this means I don't have to give you any...er. Talks. About anything."

Pavel followed him uncertainly. "What do you mean, talks?" He almost laughed a moment later. "You mean about sex? No, doctor, it won't be necessary."

He stood in the doorway to McCoy's dimmed office and watched him, amusement refusing to fade.

McCoy grabbed a box and a few papers and turned, pushing them out towards Pavel. "Take these anyway. And never speak to me about them again."

Pavel had the slightest glimpse at a brightly colored diagram and some cheerfully large-printed words as he caught the offering and nearly dropped the small box.

Condoms.

Pamphlets.

He would have laughed if he didn't feel so entirely mortified.

McCoy didn't seem to be doing much better. "Just go. Fast. Go far away and do not make eye contact with me for a couple of days. Jesus, they should have warned me better about some aspects of this damned job."

Pavel clamped his mouth shut and turned, arms laden. One of the pamphlets fluttered to the floor and he didn't even slow down.

He was almost at the door when he heard McCoy's near-constant grumble suddenly get louder, before, "Hey. Kid."

He stopped, but wasn't sure he wanted to turn. He did, though, because he did like the doctor and the mental comparison to Pavel's papa made him strangely wistful.

McCoy hesitated, seeming to work his mouth around the words. "You and Harris."

Pavel nodded, red-faced. Condoms clutched to his chest.

"I mean..._you_," he gestured at Pavel's admittedly-skinny frame, "and..._Harris_," and there he straightened and puffed out his chest and gave some terse gesture of his arms that presumably was supposed to signify Greg's own massive body.

Pavel hesitated, waiting for the question.

"Just...Jesus, kid, how are you not _constantly_ walking funny?"

Pavel frowned, then his eyes widened and he spun around and all but darted out of the sickbay. He would have been lost for words to successfully carry on that conversation in English, and he doubted he could have pulled it off in Russian.

* * *

Three - "I just don't even know, Pavel. I mean..."

Hikaru, at least, waited a couple of days for the gossip and giggles to die down before he sat Pavel down, wearing what Pavel was starting to call the Cupcake Face.

Hikaru was Pavel's best friend, so his concerns were a little harder to brush aside than any of the random officers who had been questioning him the past two days.

"I am not too young and he does not hurt me," Pavel answered, since those seemed to be the two main concerns people had. Trust Scotty and McCoy to at least give him a practice round for what would become horrifyingly familiar objections.

Hikaru lowered his voice, barely looking around at the growing group of officers filling the mess around them. "He almost killed Kirk, you know."

"Years ago."

"Even I remember how much trouble he was at the academy."

Pavel sighed, fighting back a scowl. "His reputation was undeserved, I think."

"You think."

"I knew him for two years, almost, at the academy." Pavel met his friend's eyes, knowing it was more important to convince Hikaru than almost anyone. "The only people I ever saw him hurt were the people he kept from hurting me."

Hikaru frowned at that, some flash of surprise in his eyes. Pavel, of course, had been in the academy during the same years as most of the crew, but aside from Greg and Kirk and McCoy, he hadn't known many of them. He had taken classes from Spock, had heard of Nyota, and knew a few of the engineers and science officers from his advanced courses. He and Hikaru had never met, and sometimes he wondered about that.

"Was it hard for you?" Hikaru asked suddenly.

Pavel shrugged. "As hard as you might think. Harder my first year, before Greg." He spoke seriously – he didn't like to complain about these things often, especially to Hikaru, who hadn't ever pitied or babied him – because it was important that Hikaru understood.

"I was too young and too smart, and I was an easy target. There was a group of students in particular. One student, Lepinski..." Pavel smiled to himself faintly. "I don't even remember his first name now. He was a physics major. He had been the youngest cadet to be awarded the academy's top science honors."

"Until you." Hikaru flashed a smiled, but it was muted.

"I beat him by three years." Pavel shrugged. "It is not easy for someone to accept that something as irrelevant as age would make another person's accomplishments seem greater than theirs. I don't agree with the accolades myself often, though what I did to earn the honors he once won I earned. I would have deserved the award no matter my age."

"Love your modesty, Pasha." Hikaru rolled his eyes, but the words weren't so chiding.

Pavel ignored him. "I was disliked from the start, Hikaru. But I met Greg – you should know this – when he stopped a group of them from beating me one day. It was early in my second year. People kept hating me every day after that, but no one ever touched me again. Because of Greg."

"I wish I'd known you." Hikaru frowned as he spoke those words for not the first time. "I really wish we'd've been friends back then, Pasha."

"Me too." Pavel smiled. "But he kept me safe so we could become friends now."

Hikaru regarded him for a serious moment, then sighed. "Okay, I guess I owe him for that, anyway."

"Yes. And...he has been in fights, Hikaru, I know this. But his temper is not so bad as people think. The only time he has ever raised a hand against me was when he was teaching me to fight people like him off."

"I just...I want you to be safe, Pavel. I don't like thinking..."

"Then don't think it." The first time he ever saw Greg Harris, Pavel was on the ground trying to make himself small, trying to keep his hands over his face so he wouldn't lose any teeth when they kicked him.

He was...not gentle. There was not much gentle about Greg, to look at him. He seemed remarkably big – perhaps because Pavel was on the ground looking almost straight up at him. Maybe because he had Matt Lepinski and his oversized friends almost cowering. Mostly, though, because Greg truly was big. He was broad and solid and none of it was fat, that was clear thanks to the unforgiving uniforms of the academy.

Big, and the first moment Pavel saw him and noticed him he was shouting, his hands were fists and he was shoving at the round, red-haired member of Lepinski's little bully cadre. Red-faced and glowering.

For a moment Pavel thought he was friends with the others, that some imagined insult or wrongly-aimed hit had set them against each other like apes. But when Lepinski strolled away (smirking even though the limp dragging his left hip seemed to say he'd lost the round) Greg stood there still, breathing hard and glaring at their backs.

Then he turned to Pavel and held out his hand, and his expression didn't change but for some reason Pavel knew that his scowl wasn't directed at him.

For some reason, even from the start, he knew Greg wouldn't hurt him. The memories were strong in his mind lately.

"I am not scared of him, Hikaru. I have known bullies all my life, and he is not one."

"Okay. I'll lay off." Hikaru grinned, wry. "Just...man, Pavel. You and cupcake, for God's sake. You can never do anything normal, can you?"

* * *

Four - "I dunno, man. He doesn't have much of a sense of humor, does he? What fun's a guy like that?"

Pavel raised his eyebrows and regarded Kirk, remembering many a time he had seen Kirk and Doctor McCoy sneaking off together and sharing soft words and private smiles and thinking they fooled anyone.

Still, he spoke generally. "Captain, have you ever known someone who is so weighed down that they don't smile? I have rarely heard Greg laugh, in all the time I've known him. He rarely smiles. But when he does, when he smiles at me, or because of something I've said or done...have you ever been there? Do you have any idea how good it feels to make someone smile against their nature?"

Kirk's eyes went distant, and his mouth turned up at the corners. "Okay, I'll give you that."

And whatever objections Kirk raised from then on about Pavel's boyfriend, he never did bring up that particular issue again.

* * *

Five - "If you want my opinion..."

Pavel bit back a smile. "For everyone else I know, opinion is given whether I want it or not. Do I really have an option with you?"

Nyota sighed as if put out. "Real friends never give you the option, Pavel. I was attempting to be nice."

Pavel nodded for her to go on, trying not to focus on the fact that his former professor and current senior science officer and first officer of the ship was lurking in the background, close enough to hear every word.

Pavel didn't know quite how to relate to Spock in his and Nyota's quarters.

"Well, speaking from a strictly linguistic sense...do you even speak the same language?"

Pavel dragged his focus back to Nyota. "What?"

"Well." She gestured, graceful but vague. "He isn't exactly your...intellectual equal. I mean..."

"I know what you mean." Pavel had expected someone to mention that, but he hadn't expected it to be Nyota.

He knew what she meant, and he knew that there was truth in it. Greg knew nothing about physics. He didn't care about transporter theory, he cared nothing about mathematics or the difficulties and pleasures of charting a course through an endless field of stars.

Greg didn't read books for pleasure. He didn't speak about his Academy classes with a fond smile. He didn't display much curiosity about the universe at all.

"Speaking for myself," Nyota went on after a moment, her eyes going past Pavel towards the sounds of Spock's quiet movements through their quarters, "I can't imagine being with a partner who doesn't challenge me, who I can't challenge in return. And you, Pavel, you're so much smarter than me, you must have an even harder time finding people to relate to in that way."

He didn't know how to answer that. He had always been content to consider Einstein and Feynman and T'Pril to be his challenges. He related to them well enough as a child, when there was no one in his village or his schools or even the University who could speak to him as they did in their books and vids.

Sometimes there was no greater thrill than getting lost in a theory-laden talk with Scotty, with arguments flying fast and hard between them. When Pavel would tear into Scotty's ideas and Scotty could tear into his objections and they were on the same wavelength and it was amazing.

Or with Spock, digging into new data about first-contact planets, extrapolating predictions from slight measurements of data and going back and forth in half-finished sentences that the other seemed to understand perfectly.

It could be a very intimate thing, really.

Nyota leaned over and lay her hand over his suddenly. "I'm sorry, it's none of my business." She spoke as if realizing she had bothered him. As if she felt suddenly guilty for making him aware of something he hadn't consciously realized.

He was quick to absolve her of that guilt. "You know, Nyota...I had never realized what being on a ship like this for a mission like ours would involve."

She sat back slowly, regarding him with those wide, thoughtful eyes.

He hesitated, glancing back at Spock. Apparently all that moving around was him preparing dinner. "I didn't realize that being Ensign Chekov on the bridge of a starship meant for five solid years I would never be anything but Ensign Chekov. If that makes sense?"

He turned back to her. "It isn't a job for us, it is our lives here. I am always the alpha navigator of the ship. You are always communications officer. Even on our off hours, to the other crew it's how they see us. We are always on call, always relating to each other through our jobs here. With you, and Hikaru, and some others, I am Pavel. But there is always the job, even then. Hikaru and I are helm partners, my closest friends are bridge crew. The job is always there."

She nodded.

He smiled slowly. "When I need to debate physics theory there will never be anyone better than Scotty to debate with. When I need to puzzle out matters of science, or logic, I couldn't hope for better than Commander Spock." His smile grew wider. "When I wish to turn all that off and just be Pavel, there is Greg. He has no interest in the bridge, or physics, or logic. He has interest in me."

Nyota's eyes were going soft as he spoke. Her mouth curled upwards.

Pavel smiled back. "I think if it weren't for Greg I would forget there was anything to me under the job and the theory and the science. He brings me back to myself. I would not change that for anything."

She didn't argue, though as Pavel left them to their dinner he thought he saw a rather unconvinced look on Spock's face. No surprise there, though. For Spock the exercising of his brain would always be a top priority.

* * *

He asked Greg that evening, as he mothered Greg into bed to make sure his poor wounded arm wasn't jostled or strained or anything else, if he was having any of the same issues with his friends.

"You mean are they giving me shit about you?" Greg just shrugged, sleepy. "Nah, I told 'em that's how things were, and if anyone had a problem with it they could bring it to me off-duty and I'd be happy to work it out with them."

Pavel laughed, curling up beside him and calling for the lights to dim. "Of course no one did."

"Go figure."

"I don't have that sort of luck with my friends."

"Yeah, well. No offense, Pasha, but your friends are snobs."

And maybe that was true, but they were _his_ snobs, and Greg was _his_ boyfriend, and as long as everyone accepted that arrangement Pavel would be happy.

* * *

And One:

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, _shit_, shit."

"Captain, I find the amount of energy you are expelling on pacing and repeating that word to be disturbingly out of proportion to the usefulness of the endeavor."

"In other words, Jim, shut the hell up."

Jim stopped where he was, glowering at Spock. But when he tried to turn the glare on McCoy his eyes fell on Chekov instead and his guts clenched.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

"Bones..."

McCoy didn't look up from Chekov. His hands didn't still, didn't let up on the pressure even as the torn fabric under his hand started to soak through with sickening red.

"Just get us out of here, Jim," came his only answer, grim and terse.

Damn it. Fucking Chekov. Of all the people those animals had to single out, it had to be the smallest, the weakest one. Young, happy, energetic, adorable fucking Pavel.

"I thought you fuckers were supposed to believe in honor," he shouted through the bars as he took up his useless pacing again.

"Not helping, captain," Sulu stated flatly from his exhausted slump on the ground. The blood dotting his uniform was at least not his own. Fucking badass with that fucking sword. Jim would make sure he got it back when they got out of there.

Not helping, no, but not hurting. The fucking Klingon bastard shitheads weren't even looking their way anymore. Six of them were hanging around – _six_ – to babysit a bunch of bruised and beaten officers in a cage. To watch the smallest and youngest one bleed to death.

Damn it.

They were waiting on something. He knew that, his gut had been pinging at him like crazy since Chekov was brought back. Since he had gasped with almost unintelligible accented words that what they did to him was done for an audience. A monitor or a vid recorder or something.

The Klingons had been sending a message. They were waiting for the answer.

"Jim."

He turned, along with everyone else when he heard the darkness in Bones' hoarse voice. He went over and crouched on Chekov's other side, wincing as Bones switched out blood-saturated fabric with the last of their offered stack of uniform jackets. Bones was fast enough to be a blur, and gentle as ever when dealing with a wounded officer, but Chekov gasped a wet, rattling breath. Jim could hear the liquid in his lungs.

He looked over Chekov at Bones.

Bones shook his head, pale and shadowed. "It's got to be soon. Real soon." His hands were steady, but his voice shook.

Jesus. Jim reached down and brushed curls from Pavel's face, ignoring the swelling around his eye and lip.

God, come on. Not this kid.

The growl of Klingon words caught his attention, or maybe he just wanted something else to think about. He stood up slowly, stepping back when a worried Hikaru pushed in to take his place beside his best friend.

Fucking Klingons. He glared at them, as if it did any good at all, as they tossed a few words back and forth and one of them pushed through the door of the larger room their cage made up half of.

He had to press his mouth tightly closed to keep from shouting at the oversized fuckers. He moved to Spock's side.

"Any chance they're going to find us without our communicators?"

"The odds are slim, captain. Given the nature of the political situation between the Klingon Empire and the Federation, I doubt the Enterprise has been allowed to continue the search."

Kirk nodded. He had no doubt of his crew – they were looking. But if they were looking without Starfleet authority it meant the odds were even worse.

A sharp guttural command issued from one of the five remaining bastards, and one of them turned and marched out the door.

Jim moved up to the bars, his brow furrowed.

There was a tension there that hadn't been there before. The four remaining Klingons stood stiff, watching the door instead of the cage as if waiting for something. The two that were carrying those (admittedly wicked) double-edged blades were holding on to them where earlier they'd been laid against the walls.

He listened but could barely hear anything. One of the blade-wielding pair suddenly barked out something in their strange, harsh language and went to the door as if going into an unexpected battle.

Jim's hands were wrapped around the bars by then. He watched the door, listening hard, trying to get a sense of what was happening out there.

Behind him he heard Bones' voice, low and hoarse and pleading. He didn't listen, just grasped the bars more tightly and willed Chekov to hang on a little longer.

The three leftover Klingons had a short, terse talk among themselves, and two of them started moving at the same time towards the door.

They didn't get all the way there.

The door, out of fucking nowhere, seemed to implode inwards. The blow of it was loud enough to make Jim jump, but the Klingons didn't seem rattled until they realized that the big bulky thing that had been thrown in to the door to knock it open was that last blade-wielding Klingon who'd left the room.

In the doorway came a shadow that revealed itself to be a wide, broad swath of red Starfleet uniform.

Jim might have crowed in triumph, except when Greg Harris's broad form moved into the room, no more uniforms followed him.

Cupcake had a phaser in his hand, but Kirk knew from experience that those things rarely did the job on Klingons with one shot. He fired a couple of quick bursts, enough to make the blade fall from the hand of the one armed Klingon.

He was covered in splatters and streaks of darkness – Klingon blood was darker than human, almost black as it dried. His uniform was stained and torn, shredded up one arm. His already-injured arm, Kirk realized with a sinking feeling.

Under the blood, there wasn't a thing recognizable in Harris's face. There was only the burn of a rage so dark it made Kirk's first meeting with the guy seem like a flirty dance at a debutante ball.

For a moment there was a standoff. The fourth Klingon, the one who had been used as a lockpick to open the door, lay where he'd fallen. The other three stood, snarling and ready.

"You human and your guns." One of the Klingons moved a step, his hands braced in front of him. His words were strange, stilted – not many of the fuckers spoke any English at all. "You are no sense of hon--"

Harris shifted his phaser at the talker and pressed and held the trigger.

The Klingon was caught square in the face mid-insult, and he stumbled backwards and roared. The phasers in their current form didn't kill Klingons often, but an extended blast to the face would come damned close.

But extended blasts from phasers drained their power cells really fucking fast, and from the looks of things Harris had already taken out a few of the bastards.

The Klingon fell even as the phaser blast sputtered and died.

Harris tossed the thing to the ground. He didn't look at the cage, he just turned to the two upright Klingons, and...

Hell.

Decimation was the only word Kirk found later that even came close to describing what happened next. He knew his security guy were tough, but if he hadn't watched it with his own eyes...

Harris fucking _decimated_ two healthy adult male Klingons, and that was something one human simply didn't do. The first one went down hard and died fast, the double-sided blade of his own weapon buried in his chest.

The second took longer – neither of them had weapons anymore, but it seemed to suit them both fine. For minutes that felt like months Kirk stood useless in his cage, grasping the bars, watching two oversized forms hurling each other around the room. He flinched with every hammy fist Harris took to the face, and bit back crows of triumph when it went the other way.

He bit back a shout of defeat when the Klingon grabbed Harris's newly re-injured arm and twisted, squeezed.

He heard the deep, sickening crack when Harris's boot in the Klingon's chest broke bones.

He knew he should have been shouting for Harris to get it over with, he knew that for Chekov time was going to be the difference between life and death. But he watched, silent and gaping, as the wheezing Klingon sank to his knees and couldn't pull himself back up. He saw the hate and pride on that dark, ridged face as he regarded his victorious enemy.

There was something like respect there, too, even as Harris limped over to wrench the blade from the other Klingon's body and limped back to finish the job.

It was only later that Kirk even began to realize he might have encouraged Harris to leave the bastard alive, to hold a prisoner for the Federation's use. There, in that room, it didn't once occur to him.

Kirk had to go over the story quite a few times for Starfleet and the Federation and a bunch of scowling diplomats who had to clean up the mess.

But he never mentioned his strongest memory of the entire day: watching Harris's face change as he got the cage open and saw what was left of Pavel Chekov. A man who had just taken on an entire squad of Klingon warriors showed such sudden, stark fear that it was jarring, even as his shaking hands worked the communicator in his sleeve and contacted the ship.

It wasn't bad luck that Harris was the only officer who had found their cage and prisoners. Harris had actually been alone. The message the Klingons had recorded, the message they had tortured Chekov to make, had been broadcast far and wide. From what Kirk pieced together from a few crewmembers' statements, Harris didn't even wait for the message to end.

Scotty was on the bridge, in charge with most of the bridge crew missing, but he didn't try too hard to find the engineering officer who had helped Harris beam against Starfleet orders onto the planet, into the Klingon camp.

Kirk didn't try too hard either.

When M'Benga and Chapel gave the rest of the away team a clean bill of health and released them – without much word about how Chekov was doing – Kirk showered and ate enough to have the energy to argue with Pike over the comm system for an hour about how they got free and how a dozen Klingons ended up dead.

The Federation and the Klingons were roaring about any trouble between them, any threat to whatever kind of accord the diplomats were trying to build.

Pike was still more officer than admiral, though, and Kirk ended the transmission confident that Pike would understand why there would never be an officer from his ship handed to Starfleet for disciplinary measures.

His next trip was back to sickbay, to stand with Sulu as McCoy ignored M'Benga's advice and went right back to work, tending the ensign he'd fought to keep alive in that damned cage. Spock arrived with a worried Uhura a bit later.

Kirk didn't focus on the others standing vigil with him, so he didn't know where their focus was. He knew for himself he watched the silent figure sitting by the bed as much as he watched Chekov and McCoy.

Harris refused to leave. Covered in wounds, splattered all over with dried Klingon blood, he sat there with Chekov's limp hand swallowed by his own loose fist, paying little attention to anything but Pavel's pale face.

Strangely, annoyingly, Kirk found himself thinking about a talk he'd had with Pavel less than a month ago. About how the guy had no sense of humor and Pavel was better off with someone else. Anyone else.

Harris was too old, too big, too mean. Too different from Pavel. Pavel could do so much better.

Oh, well. It wasn't news to anyone on that ship that Jim Kirk could be a fucking moron.


	4. Chapter 4

Greg was the only guy he knew who didn't like having days off.

He liked his job, even though there wasn't a hell of a lot for security to do during the long gaps between escorting diplomats or visiting planets or whatever. He liked the normal crap too, standing watch over weapons closets and following up on reports from crew about missing items or even the occasional serious thing, like assault or harassment or whatever.

Surprised him now and then just how much shit went down on a starship, when everyone was supposed to be on the same team, wearing the same uniform. But hell, they were all people. People got into fights, and people were sometimes cons and thieves.

Greg didn't necessarily like knowing the darker side of the ship, but he liked that it was his job to catch people and stop the bad shit from happening whenever he could.

He was even thinking about maybe starting a class on board same as he did at the Academy, teaching whoever wanted to learn how to fight back when some asshole jumped them. But it wasn't like he was gonna ask Kirk for permission, and he wasn't all that comfortable with going to Chief Porter, either. So he never said anything.

But, okay. Point was, he liked his job. He liked keeping busy, and he really didn't like having days off. Cause on starships that was just a big long stretch of hours without anything to fill them.

Time off made him miss open space and the water off the bay in San Fransisco, or the fields of South Dakota. Made him want to jump on a hovercar or one of those fucking sweet ATVs his family used to keep around. Made him want to move, fast, in a nice open space. Time off made him realize how fucking small the ship was, and also that the ship was his entire world while he was on it.

Some of the crew got together and played cards, started clubs – Pasha's pal from the bridge even had his own set-up in the botany labs to take care of flowers and shit. But Greg didn't have a lot of hobbies.

He didn't mind so much back when Pasha was still in sickbay – though he figured that was a shitty thing to think. But he could spend a lot of time in there with him, sitting by the bed and talking, helping him eat until he got back enough blood or whatever so he could do it on his own. Just sitting there while he read journals and got caught up on whatever science shit he was missing.

Usually Pasha always had somewhere to be, even on his days off. He had a hundred different projects he was working on down in engineering or in the science labs, and Greg liked to hear him talk about them even though he understood like three words of the whole rap. (Greg wasn't dumb enough to actually follow him around and see what he was doing. Greg was kind of big and clumsy sometimes, and he'd flunked enough science classes not to trust himself around delicate, important shit.)

Anyway, when Pasha was in Sickbay and couldn't go anywhere, Greg could hang around with him more. Now that he was back up and moving and being important and shit, Greg's days off were a bunch of long hours again.

Greg wasn't an asshole, of course – there wasn't anything to regret about Pasha being better. Not even that.

Every time Greg looked at him suddenly he was back at that one moment where he saw Pasha on the ground with blood every damned where and the doc leaning over him like he was dead. And he looked dead. Gray-skinned and limp and they'd put a knife in his stomach, Greg found out later. They did it on camera, fucking alien bastards.

Greg hadn't seen that part of their tape, and he didn't want to now. He'd taken off after they put the first bruise on Pasha.

Wasn't worth thinking about, that whole thing. Hell if Greg even remembered most of it. There was a long bit of time that was really cloudy in his memory, like it wasn't even him doing what he did. Christ, he disobeyed orders. Not even Porter's orders, or Kirk's. Starfleet headquarters. He disobeyed them and didn't think twice about it, because some alien fuckers had their hands on his Pasha and nobody hurt Pasha.

He killed them, anyway, and didn't remember anything as strong as he remembered getting to Pasha and seeing him on that ground.

Well. Whatever. It was shitty, and sometimes Greg looked at the little scar the doc said wouldn't ever go away, the one on Pasha's stomach where the alien fucker stabbed him, and it made him want to cry or something even though Pasha was alive and better.

Sometimes at night he would just sit there with Pasha kind of wrapped up around him so Greg could hold on to him and make sure nobody could get him away. And if he held Pasha kind of tightly...well, Pasha grabbed on to him just as hard, so Greg didn't feel bad about it.

So. Pasha being healthy again, that was great. If Greg had to eat alone at dinner 'cause most of security had their shift meals early and Pasha was off being alive and healthy and smart somewhere, well...fuck Greg, 'cause he was the least important part of that equation.

"Hey."

Greg frowned and looked at his tray and realized he hadn't actually started eating yet, and he didn't have much appetite anymore thanks to thinking about all that shit that happened.

"Hey."

He frowned up at whoever the hell was talking right in front of his table, and blinked when he saw that the person was talking to him.

Sulu, Pasha's best friend.

Oh. Shit. Greg stood up fast. "What? Whats wrong? Where is he?"

The guy, Sulu, had this real calm thing around him, and he gestured back at the table in this easy way and flashed a smile. "I don't know, he's probably with Scotty. Nothing's wrong."

"Oh." Greg hesitated, almost wanting to go and check and make sure. Just in case. But he looked down at the tray Sulu had, and the way he was standing there, and he hesitated.

Sulu sat down across from Greg's tray. "I owe you a thank you, you know."

Greg stood for a moment longer, but sat when he realized he probably looked like an idiot just standing there.

He frowned at Sulu. "A thank you."

"Yeah. A few of them." Sulu started plucking fries off his tray, casual like he sat there with Greg every day and said weird things.

"For what?"

Sulu looked at him then, kind of serious. "Mostly, for getting to us in time to get Pavel back here alive."

Greg swallowed and looked down at his lukewarm food. "Nothing to thank me for."

"I disagree, so you're going to have to hear it anyway."

Greg didn't want to hear it. He didn't like thinking about that day and he sure as hell didn't want to talk about it.

"Just doing my job."

"It isn't your job when Starfleet ordered everyone to stand by. In fact, 'do not engage the enemy' is kind of opposite what you did."

Greg frowned. "Not really."

"No? How do you figure that?"

Greg looked up again, wary. But Sulu wasn't grinning or smirking or anything. His brow was furrowed like he really didn't get it.

Greg knew from hearing Pasha talk that Sulu was just as smart as the other geniuses hanging around the bridge, so he felt himself kind of going warm as he tried to explain himself to Pasha's smart best friend.

"Look, there's orders and there's the job. At least in security there is. Most important part of our job is to keep the crew safe. So if we're down on a planet somewhere and there's someone attacking or whatever, even if we get ordered to do nothing we still fight them off. The job's more important than the orders. Sometimes."

It was a hard thing to explain, especially to a guy who did the helm job, where orders were orders and that was that. Greg was doing a shit job explaining, too, probably, but Sulu asked, so.

"Anyway. Starfleet said don't engage, and the Klingons said they were gonna kill the prisoners, so. What I did was my job, even if it wasn't my orders. You know?"

For a minute Sulu looked at him strange, like he was speaking Klingon or something. But he nodded. "Actually, that makes a lot of sense. Though I suspect you're oversimplifying, especially considering that you were the only one who risked coming to get us."

Greg shrugged. "That's the thing about working my job, though. We all gotta figure out for ourselves when the orders should be ignored. And I guess I'm the only one who thought they should right then."

Sulu didn't look too convinced. "Either way, thank you. For coming to get us, and getting Pasha back here safe. And..." He flashed a smile so sudden it was surprising. "For getting my sword back."

Greg blinked. He sat up. "Wait, that thing was yours? I pulled it off one of those fuckers, it was in with your communicators and all. That thing is fucking wicked."

Sulu grinned. "I almost cried when Kirk brought it to me. He said you turned it in to him, so. Thanks."

Greg felt himself grinning back, and it actually didn't feel all that weird. "You gotta show me that thing in action sometime."

"Yeah?" Sulu's eyebrows rose. "Okay, if you show me how you broke a Klingon's ribs from less than two feet away."

Greg was surprised by that. He didn't figure any of them in that cage had been paying him any attention when he fought those fuckers off.

"Deal."

"Harris. How's that arm?"

Greg looked up, and his grin faded in surprise as the doc himself slid into the seat beside Sulu's.

Doc nodded at him same as Sulu, casual, like they were buddies or something.

Took him a moment to remember the question. "Oh. It's okay. Aches in the mornings pretty bad, but I'm doing all those exercises and everything."

McCoy stared at him, then nudged Sulu. "Jesus, there _is_ one person on this ship who will actually listen to medical advice. Remind me later I owe Chapel some money."

Sulu laughed.

Greg didn't get it, but he grinned anyway when McCoy looked back at him. He wondered if maybe he should thank the doc, like Sulu thanked Greg. For helping Pasha and everything. The way Pasha said it, if McCoy hadn't been putting pressure on that knife wound the whole time he was laying there in that cell, he'd've died.

Maybe later he would thank him. He didn't really want to talk about it again right there in the mess. Anyway, McCoy kind of seemed like Greg in that he wouldn't really want an audience for a talk like that.

"Alright, Bones. Weren't you just bitching the other day about me filling up on junk food instead of eating real meals?"

Okay. Greg didn't know what the hell all this was, with Sulu and the doc and talking to him and all. But it hit some kind of new level of weirdness when fucking Kirk himself sat down. Next to Greg. Like it was nothing.

McCoy slapped Kirk's hand away as Kirk reached to steal fries off his plate. "I can get away with it, because I actually eat vegetables regularly. You eat like clogged arteries are in style and you're worried about missing the damned trend."

Kirk grinned at him through a mouthful of stolen fries and sat back. He looked over at Greg after he swallowed, like he just noticed Greg was there or something. "Oh, hey. Cupcake. I gotta talk to you--"

Greg stood up. He flashed a weird-feeling smile to Sulu and McCoy, and even the captain. "Uh, look. I gotta go find...Pavel." Or something. Jesus. "Sorry, Captain."

Kirk stopped him on his way out after he dumped his tray and food and all into the recycler. "I'll be quick," he said with a grin when he saw Greg's face. "Just wanted to give you a head's up." He stuck out his hand.

Greg reached out uncertainly, and almost missed catching the little strip of blue that Kirk let go of. He did catch it, though, and peered at it for a long moment.

It was a patch. Insignia. A rectangle, points at the corners. A line cut down the middle.

Greg knew what it was instantly, of course, but he wasn't sure what...

"Sorry it took so long, I had to wait until Starfleet relaxed about that incident with the Klingons." Kirk grinned and slapped him on the arm. "Congratulations. Your boss is gonna do some whole official thing in the morning, I guess, but I'm the captain. I can blow the surprise if I want to."

Greg blinked down at the insignia, and looked at Kirk. "Sir. This is for..."

Kirk's smile went a little softer, for a second almost looking like he meant it. "You save the entire bridge crew you're gonna get some recognition. Even if I can't formally put into your record all the actual reasons for it."

Greg shook his head, fingering the patch. "Captain, I was just--"

"Doing your job. And doing it better than anybody. That's the kind of thing that earns promotions, Lieutenant Commander."

Jesus. Greg looked up at Kirk and had this strange, completely unfamiliar urge to salute the man.

Kirk caught him before his shoulders were even squared. "Just between you and me, Harris...I only did it because I want to be able to call you Chief Cupcake one day." He grinned and wandered off back to the doc's side before Greg could even answer.

Maybe it was just the way that patch felt in his hand, but Greg had this sudden strong feeling that he really wouldn't mind being called Chief Cupcake. Even by Kirk.

* * *

"Hey, Greg."

Sulu again. Greg stopped in the middle of the corridor and let him catch up. His stomach twisted but eased off pretty fast thanks to Sulu's smile. Nothing was wrong. Good.

He was just coming from Pasha's room, but Pasha wasn't there. Greg was hoping that meant he was waiting in Greg's room, though probably it meant he was still off somewhere being a genius and all.

Sulu jogged up to Greg and came to a stop, flashing that smile. Greg didn't know the guy beyond what Pasha told him, and he already had to kind of like him because he was Pasha's best friend, but there was actually something nice about a guy who smiled so much. Pasha was the first happy person Greg ever really knew, and Sulu smiled even more than Pasha did.

"Hey, I just wanted to make sure we were on for sword-fighting lessons sometime."

"Lessons?" Greg shrugged. "I just wanted you to show me what you do. I'm not good with shit like that, be useless trying to teach me anything."

"Yeah, why don't I believe you? I watched you bury an axe in two different Klingons, pal. I know you can use a blade."

Greg felt himself smiling back, and wasn't sure why. "That was an axe, though. That little sword of yours I'd probably break just by holding it."

"I'll risk it. Are we on or not?"

Greg hesitated, but there wasn't a damned thing on Sulu's face except expectation. And that same fucking smile.

He looked down the corridor suddenly, making sure no one else (especially Pasha) was hanging around.

"Okay. What's going on today? You and that doc and the captain." He kept his voice low so he wouldn't have to step closer – sometimes people saw any movement a guy like him made as being threatening. "You've never had nothing to say to me before now."

Sulu didn't seem all that annoyed by the questions, at least. He just shrugged. "We're Pavel's friends. We're practically his family. You want me to be honest here?"

Greg nodded. He could handle honesty way better than some stupid soft lie.

"Well, honestly, Pavel's practically my brother. Once I found out about you two, you were just...I don't know, his boyfriend. A separate part of his life that I didn't need to get involved in. Plus..."

Greg waited, but it looked like too much honesty made Sulu awkward.

Greg was dumb, but he wasn't stupid. "Plus you figured I was just the meathead he was banging or whatever, and in a few weeks he'd be on to something else."

Sulu blinked. "I wouldn't put it _quite_ that way. I did think a guy like you wouldn't find much common ground with the part of his life I'm involved in."

"Uh huh. You mean every single other part of his life, right?"

"Yeah, pretty much." Sulu smiled again, but it was sheepish and not calm and relaxed like his other smiles. "Like I said, he's my brother. I don't have to get involved with his boyfriends. But a guy who cares about him so much he risks his life and his career and fights off a dozen Klingons to get him to safety? _That_ guy I want to get to know."

His smile relaxed then. "Plus I do want to know how you got enough momentum in eighteen inches of space to break a Klingon's ribs. That is pretty impressive."

* * *

By the time Greg got to his door, he found himself with plans for the next few Saturdays in the deck five gym (and a renewed voice in the back of his mind wondering if he should maybe ask the captain about teaching some classes after all).

He was also waved at by the ship's chief engineer, and for some reason when the first officer passed him in the corridor he said, "Lieutenant," like a greeting or something.

So, yeah, by the time he got to his door Greg was officially weirded the fuck out.

He got it – he wasn't a complete moron. Pasha's friends were making nice. But they were never being mean in the first place, really. At least not to Greg's face, and Greg didn't much care what people said behind his back since everyone talked about everyone behind their backs and that just was what it was.

Maybe his first appointment with Sulu he'd just go ahead and tell him not to sweat it, no hard feelings, or whatever. Greg didn't make friends all that often, he sure wasn't going to suddenly sprout five or six instant best pals in a day.

He didn't need that. He had all he needed already.

He tapped in the code to open his door and sighed. Weird fucking day, and that's why he hated days off.

Greg shrugged off his jacket, and tugged a small blue patch out of his pants pocket. He smiled to himself as he ran his finger over that patch.

Weird day, but not bad.

He tossed the patch on top of his jacket – wouldn't get it stitched on until Porter made it official. He wanted the metal pin in his hand before he got too cocky about his new rank.

Lieutenant Commander Greg Harris. Holy shit on a fucking cracker.

He grinned and made his way back to his bedroom.

He didn't get past the doorway.

Pasha was asleep. In full uniform, on top of the covers, like he didn't mean to fall asleep. But he was there, in Greg's room, just like Greg was hoping.

Pasha was strange like that- he could pass out with all lights on, with music blaring, whenever the hell he wanted to. Greg figured he did so much so fast that whenever he told his body it was okay to rest, it took him up on it right then and there no matter what.

Greg moved in, trying to be quiet. He eyed the unoccupied space on the bed for a second before sitting down in the little hard-backed chair up against the wall that he never used. He peeled his shoes off and set them aside.

Then he sat back and kind of just looked.

He did shit like that a lot. Now more than before, but he always kind of did it. Having Pasha around...it was like he was still constantly surprised by it.

He wondered why sometimes. Why him, what the hell an overgrown dickhead like Greg could have that kept someone like Pasha coming around. Sometimes it occurred to him that if there really was one definite reason why and Greg didn't know it, Greg might lose it, or stop doing it, or whatever. Then, no more Pasha.

But worrying about it didn't get him anywhere. Anyway, Pasha was usually pretty up-front, so maybe if there was something and he did lose it, Pasha would let him know instead of just taking off.

Dumb to wonder about it, anyway.

Still, with the Klingons and seeing him on the ground with all that blood everywhere, Greg had gotten an idea of what it was going to feel like if he did lose Pavel. He really, really didn't like that feeling.

Greg wasn't the kind of guy who thought up a lot of deep things or knew a lot of romantic sort of words, but he knew that something in his gut seemed to ease as he looked at Pasha laying on his bed, and listened to him snoring all quiet and wheezy the way he did. Like Greg carried around this tension all day he didn't even know about. Like he'd been carrying it his whole life, and it wasn't until Pasha came around that he felt it ease up at all.

Plus, shit. The guy was just fucking cute laying there in his uniform with his hair kind of curling out everywhere and his mouth open and his eyes...

Open. Oh.

Greg felt his face go hot as he realized he was sitting there like an idiot just staring, and Pasha was watching him do it. He cleared his throat.

"Hey."

Pasha smiled, sleepy, and stretched himself out longways. "I didn't mean to sleep."

"I can tell." Greg grinned, nodding at Pasha's shoes dragging on the sheets. "Long day, huh?"

Pasha sat up, his cheeks pink from sleep. "It was productive," he said, which apparently was all the answer he was going to give.

Greg sat for a minute watching Pasha work the laces open on his shoes. He thought about telling Pasha about his weird day, about Sulu and the doc and Spock, and Kirk and his new rank and all...

But the words kind of died in his throat. He realized he didn't want to do much at all but watch Pasha working off his boots.

"The reason," Pasha said after a minute, when he was on the second boot, "I fell asleep is because I was waiting on you."

"Sorry, got held up a couple times." Greg sat back in the kind of uncomfortable hard little chair. "Maybe you shouldn't wait for people by laying on the bed. Kind of makes it easy to fall asleep, huh?"

Pasha flashed him a smile. "But the reason I was waiting for you on your bed is because I wanted to talk to you. About it."

"About my bed."

Pasha nodded.

"Oh." Greg waited.

Pasha was quiet until he had both his shoes off. He slipped to the edge of the bed and gave one last big stretch, then stood.

"I've been thinking."

"Pretty much non-stop since you were born, from what I hear," Greg said, though his grin was kind of slipping. 'I've been thinking' wasn't usually a good sign from a guy's boyfriend, was it?

Pasha smiled, though, and moved right up to Greg's little chair. "I was thinking about you. That has only been non-stop for...eighteen months. But that's just an estimate."

Greg rolled his eyes, though his smile returned and then some. Pasha didn't think about him non-stop, he had way too much other shit going on upstairs. But that was definitely not a bad sign coming from a guy's boyfriend.

Pavel didn't stop moving at the chair. He kept coming, hiking his leg up and sitting right down in Greg's lap, facing him all casual.

Greg wasn't nearly dumb enough to complain about this new set-up. He slipped his hands around Pasha's waist to his back, grinning big even as his body started to warm up the way it always did when Pasha was close.

Pasha regarded him, eye to eye thanks to his position. His hands came out between them, long fingers trailing up Greg's chest in some random pattern.

"You know that I trust you." Pavel paused, eyebrows going up.

Greg realized he actually wanted an answer. He shrugged, studying Pasha as if he could make any sense of what was coming just from the look in his eyes. "Sure. Of course."

"Well, I do. You have been looking after me since the day I met you. I know you would never hurt me."

Greg smiled through a sudden return of that nervous feeling. "Good. I mean, it's good you know that."

"Do you trust me?"

Greg almost laughed, but Pavel wasn't smiling. "Seriously? Of course I do."

Pasha met his eyes. "I want you to fuck me."

"No." It was unexpected – like, the last thing in the world Greg was expecting this to turn into – but his feelings about that were clear even when he didn't plan to talk about it. "Come on, I told you before I don't want to..."

"You want to," Pavel said instantly, still calm and quiet like he was expecting the argument. "You are a man, of course you want to."

"No." Greg sat back, his hands dropping to his sides. "I mean...yeah. Of course. But I won't, and that's all there is to it."

"I want you to." Pavel met his eyes, smiling just a little bit. "You've told me before...anything I want."

"Fuck, Pasha." Greg looked away from him. What the fuck was going on with the whole day, anyway? Why wasn't anything going normal, like he wanted?

He stood up, lifting Pasha with him without much effort and setting him on his feet. He paced away from him, but there wasn't a ton of space in that bedroom.

"Greg."

"No."

When he turned, Pasha stood exactly where he'd been set. His smile was gone but he didn't look mad. Just determined.

Greg didn't want to make him mad, either. He heaved a breath. "We really got to do this? You were asleep, and it's late, and I don't wanna do this shit right now."

Pasha's jaw squared. "I don't understand you."

"Nothing to understand."

"You won't even consider it? You won't try?" Pavel's hands were clenched at his sides, but his face still had a crease from Greg's pillow and he looked young and Greg could still see him with blood all over him.

"I know it isn't because you don't want me enough. I know it's nothing like that." Pasha moved in a step.

Greg moved back. "Course it isn't that."

"Then what? You tell me 'anything, Pavel' and then you tell me no when I ask for what I want."

"Look. I don't...I just don't want to do that. That's something else I've told you before, so how come that doesn't count but the other shit I said does?"

"Because I don't understand it. If you said maybe or someday or we can try, I would understand. But you say 'no'. So tell me why."

Greg grimaced. "Okay, here's why – because I'd do any fucking thing you asked me to do, Pasha. Anything. You want something, I'll get it for you. You want me to kill someone? Just point 'em out, I'm sure they probably deserve it. I'd do anything and you know it."

"But?" Pasha's voice was quieter suddenly, his expression a little less stubborn.

Maybe it meant he was really listening. Good. Greg was shit at making himself understood when things were important, but he'd try.

"But. Look, I was talking to your pal Sulu about this earlier. Well. Not this, I mean, not fucking. About my job and how's there's a difference between the job and the orders. Doing anything you ask me to, those are my orders. It's different than work, you know, but it's the same kind of thing."

He hesitated, wondering how bad he was fucking up this explanation.

Pavel was listening, though, waiting. Maybe it wasn't too bad.

"I've got one job with you, Pasha. And it's stronger than the orders you could give me: I keep you from getting hurt. That's it. I look out for you. Nothing's gonna hurt you when I can stop it. Especially me."

Pavel frowned, moving in closer.

Greg didn't back up again. He stood there, hoping Pavel understood.

"You're so sure you would hurt me."

"Hell, yeah. That thing you're talking about...yeah, it fucking hurts. I'm not doing that to you. I'm sorry that's what you want, but..." Greg shook his head, feeling weird and unhappy about saying no, even to this. He did want Pavel to get everything he wanted.

If Pavel kept up, if he kept asking for this, Greg would give in. Eventually.

Fuck, why couldn't one damned thing just be easy?

Greg moved suddenly, closing the space between them because his hands were itchy without Pasha to hold on to, and he had to know this wasn't gonna make Pasha hate him.

When Pasha's arms closed around him without hesitation, Greg grabbed him back. Tight.

"Look." He talked easier with Pasha's hair tickling his chin. Maybe easier because he didn't have to see Pasha's face. "When I first got to the Academy...I knew I was queer, you know, but no fucking way I was ever gonna act on it while I was back home. Nobody else around, really, and if anyone in my family found out, they might've killed me. They'd've put me in the hospital, anyway."

Pasha's grip tightened around him, but he didn't say anything.

Greg let out a breath. This wasn't something he wanted to drag out, so... "Long story short, when I got to California I figured I'd give it a try. Went to some bar and got plastered with this other dude, and he seemed cool. Whatever. And I let him...you know, do that. And it's not anything like you think it's gonna be, I'm telling you. It fucking hurts, and there's nothing good about it."

Pasha drew back, looking up at him with wide green eyes. "You never told me about that."

Greg shrugged. "Wasn't some big thing, really. Dumb mistake."

Pasha studied him as if looking for some lie or something. But there wasn't anything to see. It wasn't some traumatic thing, it was pain, and Greg was used to pain. Greg just felt like shit after and figured maybe the queer thing wasn't for him after all.

Until Pavel came around.

Wasn't worth going into all that, though. He told his story and it was what it was.

Pavel leaned up on his toes and kissed him suddenly, real light and quick. "Do you know something?" He asked, pulling back just a little and looking Greg right in the face.

Greg smiled. Just a little smile, but it was hard not to when Pasha was so near. "What?"

"Your name. It is Russian."

Greg chuckled – Pasha had this thing about Russia. Pride, Greg figured, and listening to him talk you'd think half the shit in the universe came from some little village he grew up near.

Pasha frowned like he could read Greg's thoughts. "I'm serious. Gregori. Gregor. It's a good Russian name, old. Do you know what it means?"

"Names mean things in Russia? I just figured it meant...you know. Greg."

Pasha grinned.

Greg relaxed at that. Maybe this whole thing didn't feel entirely settled, but Pasha was smiling and joking and talking about Russia, so at least the whole thing wasn't ruined, either.

"Gregori," Pasha went on quietly, "means...watcher, I guess is closest in English. To watch over. Protect. It is a good name. For a security guard it's a strong name. For you it is perfect."

Greg grinned at that, surprised. Who besides Pasha knew shit like that? His own name meant he was a protector.

"That's really fucking cool," he said through his grin.

"It fits you, most of the time." Pasha's smile faded. "You protect everyone you meet except yourself."

Greg blinked.

"I'm sorry about..." Pasha shook his head, looking up at him. "I didn't know you had bad memories. If you want, I will not mention it again. I won't ask you for it. But Greg..." His hand slipped up Greg's shirt. "I am not some strange man at a bar. We will not be drunk. And you would never hurt me."

Pasha had always been so much better at this than Greg. He wondered sometimes if anyone realized that. If Sulu or Kirk or everyone else who knew about them realized that everything he and Pasha had ever done had been Pasha's idea, because Greg was too chickenshit to ask for it himself.

Pasha leaned up again, brushing their mouths together. "Greg..." He smiled. "Grischa. That is the diminutive for your name. Like Pasha for me."

Greg smiled at that.

"Grischa. If you tell me no, it will not hurt me, or us. But." Pasha's teeth dug at his bottom lip, his eyes wide and almost shy looking.

Greg couldn't stop himself from bringing his hand up and touching the place on Pasha's cheek where his skin was starting to pink.

Pasha's eyes dipped, but his smile grew. "You will laugh at me, maybe, but I have researched." His face got even warmer under Greg's hand. "I have read, and asked...people, and—"

"Asked people?" Greg's eyebrows flew up. This whole make-friends-with-Pasha's-boyfriend thing the bridge crew was suddenly doing was gonna feel a hell of a lot more awkward if he knew Pasha'd asked one of them about fucking.

Pasha laughed. "Nurse Chapel. It was horribly awkward. It was after people knew about us, but I didn't mention you by name. I just told her I needed advice, because I'm..." He ducked his head suddenly. "This thing Sulu called me about you."

Greg looked down at his bent head. "What thing?"

Pasha mumbled something, but drew in a breath and looked up and spoke with a red face but clearer words. "Size queen."

Greg burst into laughter. "What the hell does that mean?"

Pasha grabbed him suddenly, probably to hide his face. "Sulu says it means I like...big men. I told him I don't like big men, I just like you."

Greg grinned, ruffling his hand through Pasha's curly hair. "My little size queen."

Pasha slapped his arm, but didn't pull away. "You should probably never call me that in public."

Probably not. Maybe in front of Sulu sometime, though. Greg figured it'd be worth seeing the guy's reaction.

"The point is," Pasha said into Greg's shirt. "I got advice. I did research. I have..." His face buried itself harder into his shirt. "I have tried...um. With my fingers."

Greg's humor faded. He looked down at Pasha's hair, curling his arm around him. "You, uh..." For some reason he had to clear his throat. "When did you do all that?"

"When I'm off shift and you aren't. Sometimes...at night, when you're on away teams or..." Pasha shrugged against him. His hands were clutching at Greg's shirt and he refused to look up, which was a pretty clear sign he was embarrassed.

Greg stroked his back, up and down, and for some reason in the pause it was real easy to get a kind of mental image of what Pasha was talking about.

Even just the asking people. Greg could imagine what that would've been like, knowing how forward Pasha could be. Poor nurse was probably more embarrassed than he was.

But it was the rest of it that sort of took over his thoughts. Picturing Pasha in his quarters, or...or even right there in Greg's bed. On his own, naked and laying there all turned on and panting...with his fingers...

Shit. His hands curled into Pasha's shirt. He bent his head, kissing Pasha's head almost absently.

"It makes me want you," Pasha said into his shirt, his voice softer. "Every time I do it I wish it was you."

Greg swallowed and shut his eyes and felt Pasha's hair under his mouth. "We can try."

Pasha went still. He didn't move for a moment. "I wasn't trying to make you feel guilty."

"Were you trying to turn me on? Because Jesus, Pasha." Greg grinned, but he didn't bother hiding his nerves. "Maybe not...right now. But you could tell me about the research and all. And..." His smile went a little bigger, a little lopsided. "Maybe sometime you can show me. What you do."

Pasha looked up then, his face red. There was hope in his eyes that almost made Greg wince. How long had he been wanting this? It must have been important to him if he'd been thinking and asking and all.

Didn't make Greg feel all that great to think Pasha had to do all that alone.

"Just don't..." He let out a breath, stroking Pasha's cheek with his awkward, oversized fingers. "Don't let me hurt you. I'd hate myself."

Pasha nodded, his eyes bright. "I'm not worried, but I will promise you if it makes you feel easier about it."

"It does." Greg felt his face heating. "I've thought about it," he confessed. "A lot. I just..."

Pasha smiled. "You are a better man than you think you are, Greg. But you worry too much."

"Comes with the job," Greg answered, returning the grin and feeling somehow better about all of it suddenly. He was gonna be nervous as all hell, but. Shit. Pasha was a genius, he'd know how to do it right. Wasn't like Pasha liked being hurt, he'd speak up if it got bad.

Anyway, it's what couples were supposed to do. And now that everybody knew their business, and Pasha's friends were being weird and accepting and all, it was like they were actually a real normal couple.

Plus, he loved Pasha. Didn't say it, since he wasn't good at things like that and he really had no idea if it was way too soon to say that kind of shit, or if it was okay to say it whenever he felt it, or what.

Like the sex thing, he'd probably work that out with Pasha somewhere along the line.

"Hey," he said suddenly, curling his fingers through Pasha's hair and grinning. "If we're gonna treat this whole think like some kind of experiment does that mean I get to monopolize your free time for a while? Or you figure you're gonna need Scott and Spock helping out with this one, too?"

Pasha laughed, but clucked and leaned in to him. "Is my Grischa feeling jealous? Or have I been neglecting you? Oh, you didn't work a shift today, did you? I know that makes you grouchy, having too much free time." He leaned up on his toes and kissed Greg. "I think we can handle this one on our own."

"Good." Maybe it meant his next few days off would be a little less interesting and a little more pleasant. "Though, um. Speaking of free time..." Greg hesitated. "I kinda had...might be a dumb idea, but..."

"What?"

Greg shrugged. "You remember that little class they got me to teach at the Academy?"

Pavel blinked, then all but beamed at him with that proud, my-hero look in his eyes that Greg loved so fucking much.

Greg grinned. "Think it's worth talking to Kirk about?"

"I think you are a great man," Pavel answered. "And though I don't understand your hatred of free time, I think this is a brilliant idea."

"Okay. Good." Greg let him go with a last happy kiss. "And hey. It's not my fault I like to keep busy. People are so frigging weird when I have days off."


	5. Chapter 5

_I call this chapter: And Then They Had Sex. And yeah, I'm pushing up the story's rating because of it._

_So...proceed with caution. Unless you like that kind of thing, which I'm thinking you do or you wouldn't be here. In which case...dive on in. _

* * *

Pavel Chekov was a genius. A young, level-headed, healthy genius who had saved lives and prevented disasters before he was eighteen years old. But the man facing him down, ready to attack, was three hundred pounds of solid muscle. And sometimes being a genius was an utterly useless thing.

Pavel braced. Centered with his weight at the front of his feet, even as his heart pounded to life in his chest and he swallowed, waiting. Waiting.

The man attacked. A flash of dark eyes and then three hundred pounds was suddenly barreling at him. Massive fists, barrel chest, lunging.

Instinct screamed at him to move, to run, to do something, but a cool voice in the back of his mind reminded him to wait. He was a genius, even when it was useless, and he rarely forgot lessons he had been taught.

So between his alarmed gasp and his next exhale, time seemed to slow and he watched and twitched and waited for...

That! His attacker must have been right-handed, because suddenly his right arm was reaching out to grab or hit, and it made his body angle to the left just enough.

Now, his mind demanded, and his body reacted. He dove to the right, under the grasping hand, rolling away and jumping to his feet to face his attacker, to brace for his next move.

As that giant fist closed on empty air the attacker stumbled in surprise and wheeled around to face Pavel.

Pavel tensed, holding himself still again. He edged a foot behind him, ready to wheel around and take off if the man came at him again.

But his attacker straightened suddenly, and the threat that had soured his face cleared, dissolving into a grin.

Pavel straightened and beamed, even as adrenaline kept his heart pounding in his chest.

His feral attacker turned his wide grin to the dozen or so people sitting on the padded floor watching them.

"Lesson one."

"That's it?" came the instant answer from one of the women in the back, sitting against the wall.

Pavel grinned, remembering a similar reaction so long ago, when he was the one being taught this lesson.

And Greg returned his grin, maybe thinking of the same thing, before addressing his brand new students. "That's it. What do you figure the lesson might be?"

"If it's to run like hell when a guy who looks like you comes at me, I already knew that one," the objector retorted. A nurse, Pavel thought, one of the night nurses, not the ones he knew by name through Doctor McCoy.

"Actually, you're pretty close." Greg gestured for Pavel.

Pavel went over, trying not to grin too widely.

Greg threw an arm over Pavel's shoulder, no doubt to draw focus to the difference in their sizes. He was five inches taller than Pavel, and at least twice as heavy. Just his arm, almost bare in the short, tight sleeves of his uniform undershirt, must have looked impressively over-sized around Pavel's narrow shoulders.

"Look," Greg went on, "lesson one's going to be a cold, hard fact – when a guy my size is coming at a guy like Pavel, the odds of him being able to fight me off are shit. Forget whatever martial arts bullshit you saw on the vids as a kid, anyone twice your size has a huge fucking advantage. If Pavel'd been training for years he might last a little while, but on sheer power and strength a guy like me could wear him down fast. It stinks, but it's the truth. So if you're here to learn how to pound into Klingons or some shit, let go of that idea now."

Mike Lewis, one of the few men in the class, an engineering ensign Pavel had worked with before, chimed in with a laugh. "We'll leave that to you, Harris."

Pavel felt Greg's body tense against his side, but just for a moment. He slipped his hand behind Greg and lay his palm against Greg's back, silent reminder that he was right there, and alive, not bleeding on the floor of some Klingon prison cell.

Greg went on with barely a pause. "You're not gonna be able to fight me off. None of you. If I was just some big guy with no training, you'd still be fucked. Since I do have some training you're all the more fucked. So, lesson one – run like hell if someone like me attacks you."

There were some chuckles but a few grumbles, and an unhappy murmur from the night nurse who spoke earlier.

Greg's arm dropped from Pavel's shoulder. "Okay, look. Nobody in their right mind wants to get into fights. Fighting is ugly and stupid, and it hurts like hell. Anyone here ever punched someone?"

Two hands went up – Mike Lewis and a slight, serious-eyed girl in science blue.

Greg nodded at them. "It hurt, didn't it?"

Mike shrugged, but the girl nodded.

"Yeah. It hurts to get hit, and it hurts to hit. There isn't a single good thing about having to fight. Now some guys are sick, some guys get off on it. Some guys, like me, just have a temper problem and jump to the most extreme reaction right from the start."

Pavel heard a snort from behind him. He glanced back and smiled in surprise.

Greg had an audience.

He left Greg to his lesson, moving to the doorway where Hikaru and the captain stood, watching. Kirk's wryly amused eyes stayed on Greg, but Hikaru smiled at him in greeting.

"What are you two doing here?"

Hikaru's aimed a nod at Kirk. "He's too proud to admit he needs lessons, so I said I'd come with him to 'observe' or something."

"Hey." Kirk scowled over at them, but grinned almost instantly. "I just have to make sure a class I gave an okay to isn't going to get anyone killed."

Pavel and Hikaru exchanged amused looks, which just made Kirk huff again. Pavel's eyes went back to Greg as he leaned back against the doorway beside Hikaru.

"--things going for you. I went at Pavel just now, and he got out of the way. Maybe it looked simple when he did it, but it's not as easy as all that. He knows how to balance himself just right, so no matter which way I leaned he'd've been able to compensate. If he moved too soon I'd've had time to change direction and grab him. Too late and I would have caught him. And once he got clear and was back on his feet, he was already braced for my next move."

Pavel saw a couple of the students looking past Greg at him, and he felt heat rising to his face.

He only knew what Greg had taught him, and Greg's first lesson to him had been this same lesson – to avoid every fight he could. That, of course, was a lesson Pavel embraced more enthusiastically than this group seemed to be.

Greg went on, and their eyes went back to him. "Most guys my size are used to their strength being all they need, so they come on strong and throw out every other consideration. Usually that means their balance is all off, they're not thinking ahead. They're all momentum, and all you've got to do is what Pavel did – get the hell out of the way. They're gonna need a second to recover, to come at you again. And a second in a fight is a long damn time. He coulda been out the door before I could close in. That is a good end to a fight."

If Pavel didn't know better he never would have guessed that Greg had lost sleep over this class. He had taught Pavel, and he took on a few other students at Starfleet Academy their last term there, but he didn't consider himself to be a teacher. The idea of this class – a formal setting, a dozen pairs of eyes on him, and Captain Kirk giving official permission – had almost petrified him.

But it didn't show, and every word he spoke in that rumbling voice just made Pavel feel more and more proud.

"So, lesson one. No fight is a good fight. The only successful fight is one you walk – or run – away from. And this class ain't about learning how to pound people's heads in. There'll be some of that, probably – sometimes you can't walk away, and I'm not gonna leave you without some tricks if that ever happens – but mostly it's gonna be about learning how to carry yourself, how to read your opponent, and how to get your ass away alive."

Greg straightened, looking over the class. "Anyone who thought they were signing up for something different, you won't hurt my feelings if you take off. Hell, you'd be helping me out - fucking making me nervous, all of you staring at me like this."

Another low chuckle went through the group, and even the objecting nurse smiled.

Nobody moved.

Greg glanced back, looking for Pavel with that big, crooked, almost-shy grin on his face. But he saw Kirk and Hikaru and his grin froze for a moment.

He recovered fast, though. "Captain, you coming in? I hear you can use the help. Sir."

Kirk scowled and straightened his shoulders, but any stern objections he could have made were ruined from the start thanks to Hikaru snickering at his side.

* * *

It was nearly impossible to decide which version of Greg Pavel liked better – sweaty, glistening, warm-muscled Greg straight out of the gym, or damp and clean Greg fresh out of the shower. There was something in Pavel, something un-scientific, something guttural and base and primal, that stirred when Greg was slick with sweat, salty to the taste. But he couldn't deny the appeal of a clean, scrubbed Greg that Pavel could make sweaty again all by himself.

In the end it was an issue of semantics, really, because the moment Greg saw him and flashed that wide, uncomplicated grin in greeting, Pavel reacted the same way no matter what state Greg was in.

And this smile, after his lesson (and his shower, Pavel noted), after his nerves were wiped away and he had won over his gym full of students, was particularly bright.

"How did it go?" Pavel set down his stylus and left the padd and unfinished theorem without a thought, getting to his feet as his boyfriend flashed him that smile.

He hadn't stayed until the end of the class – Greg had shooed him away once his students were comfortable enough to volunteer to play Pavel's role and learn what he knew.

Greg shrugged off the duffel bag he'd brought all the way from the academy. His grin didn't fade a centimeter. "I think it was good. Everybody said they'd be back next week, anyway." He hesitated, his eyes gleaming with humor. "I don't think he wants me to tell anybody, but the captain stuck around at the end and asked to set up a couple private lessons."

Pavel laughed. "I'll keep his secret. He really does need the help."

"Yeah, I've noticed." Greg met him halfway, sliding his broad, warm hands around Pavel. "Thanks, you know? For saying I should do it, and for coming to help and everything."

"Anytime," Pavel answered sincerely. He leaned up on his toes, tilting his face up expectantly.

Greg grinned and bent his head, brushing his mouth across Pavel's lightly.

The Enterprise was approaching its one-year mark in the five year mission they were given. That meant Pavel and Greg had known each other by then for about two and a half years. They had been together for eighteen months.

It was a long time, especially considering that no one who knew Pavel had initially believed they could possibly be serious. It was a long time considering how young Pavel was, considering that it was the first real relationship either of them had ever had.

Pavel had wondered at times if he would ever get bored with it. When he was first dealing with his friends knowing about Greg, and dealing with their reactions, his subconscious played devil's advocate sometimes.

Wouldn't he get tired of Greg, after all? Wouldn't he long for someone he could talk to about the mysteries of the universe, the contradictions of quantum physics, the ongoing mystery of dark matter and the delight of exploring Scott's revolutionary transporter theories? Wouldn't he want someone with Hikaru's easy smile and dry humor, or Kirk's charm? Wouldn't he want to at least try, to see what being with someone else would be like?

Maybe he was getting dull with the onset of adulthood, but his intellectual curiosity never seemed to kick in regarding other possibilities besides Greg.

Now and then he had a vague sense of what-if. But then Greg walked through the door, grinning his self-conscious greeting smile, harnessing all that strength to make sure that every time he touched Pavel it was with gentleness.

He didn't want more than that. He didn't want different. Why in the world would he?

He appreciated Greg more now than he had at the Academy. He loved his friends, of course, the brilliant group of complicated, talented people that they were. But sometimes, most of the time, he longed for Greg's straight-forward dependability. He longed for Greg's solidness, in more than just the physical sense.

Though, of course, the physical sense was nothing to be overlooked.

Pavel's fingers stroked the back of Greg's head as Greg smiled against his mouth. His fingertips skimmed the soft fuzz of Greg's short hair and he nudged Greg down to deepen his light, teasing kisses.

"Mmm." Greg made a pleased, if surprised, noise. "You get lonely in here the last forty minutes or what?

Pavel pulled back enough to meet his eyes. "You are a very appealing man. Do you know that? Watching you in that class..." He grinned, face heating. "I wanted to drag you back here with me when I left."

Greg chuckled and pulled away enough to untuck his shirt. "You shoulda said something. I could've called the first class early."

"You wouldn't have. Not with the captain right there, at least." Pavel followed rather shamelessly as Greg went back to his bedroom. He was a nice enough sight in his workout clothes – the tight Starfleet-issue undershirt and a pair of baggy track pants brought from earth.

But Pavel was greedy enough to want to watch him peeling those off, as nice as they were.

"I think," he said, leaning against the doorframe to the bedroom as he watched Greg strip his shirt off, revealing a mile of broad, muscled flesh, "I had better stay away from the rest of your classes, though. I'm young, my self-control is limited."

Greg grinned over his shoulder. "You do what you have to. I'm just glad you came to this one. I don't think I woulda done it without you."

Pavel opened his mouth to answer, but the thoughts remained unspoken as he watched Greg moving around his room. He was big, yes, and obviously strong. But graceful, too, in that way people were graceful when they were entirely familiar with their own bodies. Not a dancer's grace, not anything particularly delicate or soft.

Just a confident sort of grace that said Greg knew his own body, and knew it would do whatever he told it to. Something about it, about him, made it hard for Pavel to take his eyes off of Greg even as he dug through drawers for a clean pair of pants and a t-shirt.

Right. He was off duty for the rest of the day. They both were.

That was fortuitous.

Pavel approached as Greg sat on the chair by his wall to kick off his shoes.

He knew Greg's body well. They slept together almost every night, and though Pavel had yet to have Greg inside of him, they weren't timid about getting each other off. They were way past the point of self-consciousness when it came to showing some skin, and Pavel was as familiar with the planes and hard curves of Greg's chest as he was with his own.

Greg peeled off his socks and tossed them in a corner – he'd get them later, Pavel knew, he wasn't as fastidious as Pavel tended to be but he was trying to get better about it – and made to stand back up.

Pavel slipped in before he could, moving in without hesitation until he pressed into Greg's legs, too close to allow Greg to stand.

Greg looked up at him. "Uh. Hey."

Pavel grinned. "Were you in a hurry to get dressed again?"

Greg's mouth twitched up. "I got nowhere to be," he answered. "Got something in mind?"

Pavel held out his hand, backing up a step. "You look tired."

"Tired?" Greg took his hand instantly, getting to his feet. "Nah, I'm not--"

"Greg." Pavel surveyed him: broad, bare, muscled chest, warm skin still smelling like the regulation soap stored in the showers. Caring eyes, crooked grin.

"I just think you ought to lay down for a while," he went on after a moment, warm with growing anticipation.

"Ohhh." Greg glanced back at the bed as if considering the idea. "Well. Now that you mention it, I guess I could use a few hours on my back." He grinned suddenly, reaching out and wrapping those broad, strong hands around Pavel's waist and lifting him without much strain. "And since I know you wouldn't want me getting lonely or anything all by myself..."

Pavel laughed as Greg hauled him over to the bed, but when Greg made to set him down he moved fast, snaking his arms around Greg's neck and bringing his legs up, circling Greg's waist.

"I guess this means I'm going wherever you are."

"Guess so." Greg didn't miss a step. He reached the bed and climbed onto the mattress, seemingly unhampered by the Russian growth suddenly fastened to his chest. His hands slipped from Pavel's waist to his back, and he braced himself with a strong arm as he lowered Pavel to the mattress.

Just like that all the strong, clean skin Pavel had been admiring was suddenly his entire world. Greg's weight on him, covering him, half supported by Greg's bracing arm but so much solid, secure weight over him that Pavel wanted to moan his approval.

Greg's mouth found his and Pavel lost himself in the kiss, slow and deep. His hands explored the endless planes of Greg's body, legs still clamped around Greg's waist as if Greg might leave if given the chance to escape.

Greg growled into his mouth, rolling them on their sides so he didn't have to worry about his weight being too much for Pavel. His broad hand skimmed down Pavel's side and curved around his back.

He broke off the kiss but stayed so close that Pavel could feel the shape of his growled "too many clothes, Pasha," against his mouth.

Pavel mumbled an agreement, but couldn't bring himself to pull away enough to get his own shirt unfastened. He could feel Greg hard against him even through his clothes, through Greg's thin track pants. He flexed his thighs around Greg, pressing him in close, rolling his hips until his growing erection slid against Greg's.

"Fuck," Greg growled, breaking away from his mouth to grab his shirt, yanking it up. "Pasha. Gotta let me go a sec. Come on."

But Pavel's mouth had already found Greg's jaw, and didn't want to give it up. He could feel the beginnings of stubble making his skin sandpaper rough, and the rasp of it against his already-sensitive mouth was heady.

"Pasha...fuck." Greg's hands dove under his gathered shirt, sliding up Pavel's chest as he drove their erections together again.

Pleasure made his head spin and his back arch, and Pavel's mouth slipped from Greg's skin to vent a moan.

Greg moved fast, yanking his shirt and forcing Pavel's arms up to get the shirt off. "Hah!"

Pavel laughed uncontrollably, burying his face against Greg's chest even as his breath caught when Greg pressed him close. Skin against skin, enough to make Pavel's head spin even after eighteen months.

Greg's fingers slipped through Pavel's hair as he kissed the laughter from his mouth. His body slowed, hips not so insistently driving into Pavel.

Pavel went with it as the sense of urgency faded back, as the luxury of having Greg in his arms came over him.

He broke off the kiss, pushing his eyes open to take Greg in as greedily as his hands stroked all over his chest and the ridges of muscle down his back.

"My Grischa," he murmured with a smile, blushing even as he said the nickname he'd first told Greg about weeks ago but didn't often use outside of their bedroom.

Greg smiled, heated and soft, private. Pavel had a feeling if anyone but him knew that Greg could smile like that, no one would ever wonder again what Pavel saw in him.

Pavel curled in to him, bringing his fingers up to toy in the short stubbly hairs at the back of Greg's neck.

"Do you know when I first realized I liked you?" He kissed Greg again softly. "Liked you in this way, I mean."

Greg's cheeks were pink. "When?" His hand stroked up Pavel's back, up the line of his spine.

Pavel shivered. "After Matt Lepinski gave me another black eye. I broke into the registrar's computer system to find your room number so I could find you and ask you to help me learn to stop him."

Greg's smile faded and his grip tightened. He nodded. "I remember."

"That was when. But it wasn't even how fast you said yes, or how much you helped, that made me realize it. It was the very moment you opened the door and saw me standing there."

Greg's brow furrowed. He studied Pavel across the pillow.

Pavel could still see that moment in his memory clearly. "You saw me, and you looked at my eye, and I think my lip was bleeding..."

"Yeah, it was." Greg's hand came up, his fingers tracing Pavel's temple, and the unbruised skin around his eye.

The look on his face put Pavel back to that moment months ago. "You took one look at me and right there on your face I saw..." He shook his head and smiled. "I was nervous showing up there. We had only talked a couple of times before. I didn't even know your last name, I had to go through the roster of security students trying to find you. Luckily you were the only Greg in Security."

Greg regarded him, flushed but no longer smiling. That protective gleam was bright in his eyes.

Pavel met his gaze, shivering as Greg's fingers stroked over his face. "I was nervous, but the moment you opened the door and saw me there you got so...you looked at me as if my being hurt was the most wrong thing you had ever seen."

Greg's throat worked. The pad of his thumb traced over Pavel's lower lip, whole and unhurt.

"I knew in that moment that if I hadn't come to ask for help, if you had just passed me on the grounds and seen the state I was in, you would have helped. I mean...I've been looked at that way a lot. For every bully who ever resented me there were nice people around who would stand up for me. Even the captain, back in school..." He grinned suddenly.

Greg returned it, faint but sincere. "Nosy asshole."

"Yes, but he meant well. Still, I knew Kirk would look out for me because he felt sorry for me. Because I was too young, and I was alone. But you didn't look at me that way. Even from the start you only saw a person you liked who didn't deserve to be hurt, and that alone made you so determined to help me. It was different, and when I saw that difference for myself I knew..."

He slipped his hand up, fingertips skimming Greg's mouth. He swallowed. "I knew I could love you for it."

Greg pulled away from Pavel's exploring fingers. His own hands stilled, his eyes wide, his smile faded. "Wait. What?"

Pavel swallowed. He didn't have much fear of the words, and he didn't take Greg as the kind of man who would run screaming even if he didn't say them back. But it was a hard thing, surprisingly hard, to make his mouth form the words once.

The second time was even harder. "I love you."

Greg's eyes searched his face, narrowing. He sat up.

Maybe Pavel's confidence he wouldn't be abandoned was misplaced.

He sat up more slowly and found himself facing Greg's back. He was silent for a moment, his chest tightening breath by breath, watching those shoulders.

"You, uh..." Greg spoke after a moment, his voice low. "You sure you know who you're talking to and all?"

Pavel frowned. "I'm not sure what you..."

Greg drew in a breath so deep the rise and fall of his shoulders was visible. He spoke softly. "Nobody ever said that to me before. I just...I figured it wasn't something I'd ever...nobody would ever..." He shook his head.

Pavel relaxed at that. He slipped in close to Greg, laying his hands on Greg's shoulders. He at least felt confident enough to smile.

"I know who I'm talking to, Greg. And it isn't something I say lightly, or I would have said it months ago, when I first started feeling it."

"Huh." Greg laughed, a faint puff of air. "I just...man. I didn't think...well, I didn't think about you actually saying it at all, but I never woulda thought it would...knock me over like that."

"That's a good thing, isn't it?" Pavel's hand tightened on his shoulder, his apprehension leaking through in his voice.

"Oh. Shit." Greg turned himself around, his eyes bright. His face was still pale but he smiled, and it stretched wide into a grin. "I mean. Yeah. Sorry, I should've...yeah. Hell, yeah, it's good. I mean...." He laughed at himself. "Me too. I love you. Too."

Something in Pavel's chest seemed to give at that. He laughed, unsteady and flushing. "Next time you should probably say that right away."

"Shit. I'm sorry, I didn't mean..." Greg laughed, as tight and odd as Pavel felt. "Okay, gimme another chance."

"Another chance?" Pavel sat back on his heels.

"Hang on." Greg grinned and reached out, grabbing his hands. "Okay. Go."

Pavel felt himself echoing that huge grin. He tried to school himself – it was a serious moment, after all. But the smile was audible in the words, try as he might to be solemn.

"I love you."

"I love you, too," Greg answered, prompt and fast. He laughed the moment the words were out, and there was a strange kind of relief in the sound.

Pavel understood it perfectly. He squeezed Greg's hands and leaned in, muffling his own giggles in Greg's shoulder. "This is not how this happens in the vids."

Greg laughed harder, and his mouth appeared on Pavel's temple, pressing fast, light kisses over his face. "Don't care, as long as it's how it happens with you." He pulled back and met Pavel's dazed eyes. "You need to get your pants off. Now. I don't want you feeling anything but good."

Pavel tried to laugh but his breath deserted him. He let go of Greg's hands and unfastened his slacks, quick through his hands felt unsteady. "You never make me feel anything but good."

"Shut up, Pasha. You said the love thing, that's enough sap for one day." But Greg's cheeks were pink with pleasure. He stood up suddenly, peeling the track pants and those dark boxer-briefs he favored off in one quick move.

He was back on the bed before Pavel could properly enjoy the new view, but Pavel couldn't complain when Greg pushed his hands out of the way and tackled his stubborn zipper. Greg's hands were more steady, but apparently more determined, and the sudden sound of tearing fabric came as Greg jerked his pants down.

Pavel dropped on his back and lifted his hips to get those pants off faster, urgency slamming back into him with the sound of his pants tearing under Greg's hands.

Greg must have felt the same way, because the moment he had jerked those pants past Pavel's knees he abandoned them to move up Pavel's body and cover him like a blanket.

Pavel groaned, rolling into him and finding his mouth with desperation he hadn't felt ten minutes ago. Their mouths mashed together, fierce and needy and graceless.

Greg's thigh drove between Pavel's legs, grinding down over his erection. He broke their messy kiss off far too soon to drag his mouth down to Pavel's throat, clamping down at the nape of his neck and nipping, sucking. Marking.

Pavel's head fell back. He whimpered, locked his fingers around the back of Greg's neck to hold him in place. Greg stayed where he was, working teeth and lips and tongue until Pavel was boneless beneath him, panting and straining.

Greg released his poor bruised throat suddenly, looking down at Pavel with heated eyes.

"I wanna watch you."

Pavel moaned, his cock throbbing painfully against his stomach. He reached out towards the bedside table without even looking, and Greg of course slid over the few inches to throw the drawer open and grab the half-full tube of lube that had gotten a good workout the last few weeks.

The first time they had done this, Pavel had to almost force himself. He was the one who told Greg about his explorations with his own body, putting his fingers inside himself to practice, to learn what it was he wanted to ask Greg for.

He hadn't realized Greg would really think about it as much as Greg admitted he did. So when Greg asked to watch him, Pavel had been sheepish and flushed and reluctant.

For all of two minutes.

He hadn't realized watching could be such an erotic thing, but Greg's eyes on him so intently as he worked his fingers inside had been unbelievable. The heat in Greg's eyes, the desire on his face, the way he couldn't peel his gaze away.

And when Greg had, blushing, pulled his erection from his shorts and stroked himself in time with Pavel's movements, just watching Greg bringing himself to orgasm had turned Pavel on so much he almost came without even touching his own cock.

Since that first amazing night Greg had asked to watch him a few times, but they usually didn't make it to the end without coming together, rutting or sucking or stroking each other to completion.

There was a part of Pavel, a selfish inner longing, that left these nights unsatisfied because having his own fingers inside of him just made him want more. But that was a small complaint compared to the overwhelming thrill of the rest of it.

He reached for the lube when Greg reappeared at his side, but Greg didn't hand it to him. He regarded it, and Pavel, for a hooded moment, then flipped the tube open. Silent, breathing fast, he squirted the slippery liquid into his broad hands and let the tube fall to the bed.

Pavel swallowed, watching him work his hands together, warming the lube before reaching for Pavel's hand.

Pavel's fingers were swallowed into Greg's large palms. His erection throbbed painfully as Greg toyed with his fingers, stroking to transfer the lube from his skin to Pavel's, watching Pavel's face as he did.

When he let go of Pavel's hand and sat back on his knees, Pavel fought his initial rush of self-consciousness. He lay back on his back, spreading his legs and bringing his knees up.

Greg leaned over him, knowing how hard the first minute or two usually was. He kissed Pavel's mouth lightly, stroking his slicked hand down Pavel's stomach. Just an absent, light touch.

It usually helped center Pavel's nerves, having Greg touch him. Pavel lay back and shut his eyes and focused, forgetting his self-consciousness as he reached down with a shivering hand and dragged his fingertips down past his erection.

His body ached and his nerves calmed at the familiar touch. His body knew this feeling well, and heat pulsed through him at the first stroke of his fingertip over his puckered hole.

One finger, then two, dipping in and out, slow and at first without any sense of rhythm. He clutched Greg's arm with his other hand, grasping in time with the movements of his fingers. In and out, a slick slide of invasion that, sure enough, just made him feel somehow emptier with every thrust.

"Fuck, Pasha." Greg's voice was a bass rumble in his ear, making Pavel's cock twitch. "You're so fucking beautiful."

Pavel's back arched, his fingers sliding deeper. He tried to breathe Greg's name but only whimpers came out.

Then Greg moved, his weight a dip in the mattress as he shifted, gently pulling Pavel's hand off his arm.

Pavel opened his eyes to watch him, anticipation curling in his gut. Greg would go to the foot of the bed, kneeling between Pavel's legs, and stroke his own cock as he watched Pavel's hand and his face and his cock as if he really was beautiful.

It wasn't all Pavel could ask for, but it was so much more than he ever knew he wanted.

Greg settled in his usual spot, his eyes rapt on Pavel's thrusting fingers. "Jesus, baby."

"Greg..." Pavel's voice was hoarse, thready. He shut his eyes, wanting to give Greg at least a few minutes of the sight he loved to watch so intently.

Then Greg's hand wrapped around his arm.

Pavel's breath caught, his eyes opening again.

Greg met his gaze, something heated and primal in his eyes. "I want..."

Pavel wasn't sure – and didn't want to hope – what he meant, but of course he nodded. Of course he slipped his fingers free when Greg urged him to, and trusted Greg to want something Pavel would want too.

Greg stroked his hand up Pavel's thigh, and when he moved in closer he guided Pavel's leg up and over his shoulder.

Pavel lay back, unable to take his eyes off Greg. Unable to draw a solid breath.

Greg's hand was still slick with lube, so when he pressed against the opening Pavel's own fingers had loosened, his finger slid inside easily.

Easily, but so fucking different. Pavel's body knew at once that this wasn't his own experimenting fingers. Heat pulsed through his veins, pleasure and want and need rolling in his belly. More, he wanted to demand. More, more more.

Greg's fingers were broad, thicker than Pavel was used to. One slipped in easily, two was a thrilling kind of stretch. Pavel arched to push in, to take him in deeper, and Greg's hesitation rapidly seemed to fade.

"Pasha." His voice was more vibration than sound, gravel more than tone. Greg found a slow, even rhythm and thrust those two thick fingers in and out, in and out, until Pavel was all but sobbing his pleasure.

"Pasha. Baby. Jesus, I never wanted anything like I want you."

Pavel's eyes flew open. "Please. Yes, Greg, please. Please, please."

Greg's throat worked, but the hesitation that wanted to form on his face didn't seem able to get past the desire and love burning from him already. He drove his fingers in deep, and when he pulled them out it was to work in a third finger with them.

Pavel gasped, the stretch hot and real and almost-painful but in no bad way. His head fell back, his fingers dug into the sheets under him. He heard himself, heard the high, helpless noises he was making, but couldn't stop them. Couldn't stop his cock from throbbing or his balls from tightening.

His own explorations had been awkward, the position strange and his knowledge minimal. He had only managed to brush his prostate a few times. Greg, though, gave one crook of his fingers inside Pavel's body and suddenly his body flamed with heat.

His hips pushed into the pleasure, lifting off the bed, and his cock pulsed and spurted over his belly and thigh.

Greg murmured low words that Pavel couldn't hear through the rush of air that seemed to fill his head. His fingers slowed, and then withdrew from Pavel's body before Pavel could beg him not to leave.

Pavel sank back, feeling half-melted. He fought for air, fought for words that would keep Greg close to him. He didn't find them, but Greg stayed close anyway. He stayed right where he was, with Pavel's ankle on his shoulder and his hand curled around Pavel's thigh. He stroked a soft, soothing touch up and down Pavel's leg.

When Pavel opened his eyes he found Greg watching him, the look on his face enough to make Pavel want to cry. Love and desire and awe all painted in such clear strokes over Greg's broad features.

Greg was hard, painfully hard, his cock sticking up straight against his stomach as he knelt there, ignoring his own body to adore Pavel with his eyes. Pavel couldn't help but wonder what he had ever done in his life that merited that sort of devotion.

He smiled when he had regained that much motor control. After a moment Greg returned it.

"I guess you liked that."

Pavel laughed. "I'll try not to be so subtle next time."

Greg grinned, but it was wilted at the edges. "If I hurt you...you'll tell me. You'll stop me. Right?"

Pavel's smile vanished. His pleasure-melted body seemed to spark instantly with heat, though his spent cock didn't manage to stir. "I promise you, Greg. I will tell you. And it will be alright, if it happens. Because I love you and you love me."

Greg nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, it'll be alright." He slicked hand moved to his own cock, grasping and stroking, slow, up and down. He sighed out a shaky breath.

Pavel wanted to reach out, to stroke his face, to run his palms over his short hair and soothe the furrow out of his brow. But he was too far away, so he met Greg's eyes and spoke.

"I've never been afraid of you. I'm not afraid now."

Greg's head bowed, his gaze dropping. He nodded.

"You should trust yourself, Grischa."

It hurt, knowing that Greg was making himself do something he knew Pavel wanted badly. And of course Greg wanted it as well, but he would never have offered if Pavel hadn't asked.

Pavel almost, for a few tense moments, offered to forget about it. But this story Greg had told him, about when he let some stranger fuck him and it hurt so much...that was something that couldn't stay in Greg's mind. He couldn't go on with that as his first and only memory of actual sex with another man. It wasn't healthy.

Pavel would have let him forget it now, but his own urges were so intense. How long would it take for him to start resenting Greg's skittishness about this one thing? How long before he couldn't stop himself from fighting for what he wanted?

There was no perfect way to get over something like this, Pavel thought. If there was a perfect way...well, he was an eighteen year old who had only ever had one lover, and Greg was gun-shy thanks to the only other man he had been with. So if there was a right way to do this, neither of them knew what it might be.

Pavel pushed himself up on an elbow and held out his hand. "Grischa."

Greg looked up, his nervousness softening when he met Pavel's gaze. He slipped closer across the sheets, taking Pavel's offered hand. "Sorry. I'm trying here, just...I'm so fucking big, and you're..."

"Not going to break," Pavel completed with a smile. "You were the first person to teach me that, when you taught me ways to fight back against people who would hurt me. I'm strong."

"I know." Greg shrugged. "I'm trying to remind myself about all that."

"I have an idea." Pavel sat up, his legs functioning though he still felt partially boneless. "Come here."

Greg came over on his knees, clasping Pavel's hand with that sheepish smile.

"Here. We trade places. Sit." Pavel gestured to the headboard.

Greg's brow furrowed but he obeyed, sitting almost where Pavel had been laying, his back up against the headboard.

Pavel sat back on his heels and surveyed him, noting with a pleased smile that even through the apprehension Greg's erection hadn't gone anywhere.

"Now..." Pavel leaned in and kissed him, light and quick, slipping his leg over Greg's until he was straddling his lover's broad thighs. "We will do it this way, and I will be the one who stops and starts, _zashhitnik moy. _I am in control."

Greg's hands slid up his thighs to circle his waist. His throat worked and he nodded. "First. C'mere."

Pavel smiled through the flutters of anticipation. He slipped up Greg's thighs until his own stirring cock was brushing against Greg's rock-hard erection.

Greg groaned, but Pavel leaned up and swallowed the sound. The kiss was desperate, deep, hungry. Greg's hands moved, one tracing up his spine to support him, one slipping down over his ass. A thick fingertip traced down the center of him, skimming over the slippery patches of lube still coating his opening.

Pavel growled, pushing himself up, against Greg. Greg's cock was slippery against Pavel's sweaty skin, and the patches of Pavel's come that somehow he hadn't even thought to clean off.

Pavel braced his hands on the thin headboard of the bunk, murmuring into Greg's mouth, nudging in closer and closer until his erection was trapped between their bodies. Greg's tongue probed him, and his hand against Pavel's ass suddenly tugged, spreading his cheek, opening him up as much as he could with one hand.

Pavel had to hold himself up as Greg's broad, comforting hand vanished from his back to work his cock into place. Small price to pay, but Pavel's thighs were already burning, jelly, the strain different than any workout his running had accustomed him to.

Didn't matter. God, he would have held himself up forever, especially when Greg tore away from the kiss, his eyes squeezed shut in focus, and suddenly his thick, broad cock was against Pavel's ass, slipping against lube and rubbing into his skin, looking for entrance.

Pavel's breath choked, and everything he had wanted for months was suddenly right there. When Greg didn't move, didn't push himself any further though Pavel could feel the strain that being still was causing him, Pavel remembered his promise.

His hands clenched over the headboard and his thighs ached in complaint as he lowered himself, painfully slow.

The blunt flesh against his ass felt impossibly thick, more than Pavel had anticipated, but his body opened and slowly, carefully stretched around him. And suddenly, blissfully, Pavel was taking him in. Just an inch, then a pause, and another slow, careful press down until it was two inches. And a pause.

He made the mistake of opening his eyes, focusing on Greg's face. He had to look away fast before the shock and dazed pleasure painted over his lover's features made him lose his fragile control.

It hurt. There was a burn there, the unflexible, unforgiving thickness of a cock that no fingers could have prepared him for. His body burned, his mind dared to think that it might have been too much, but Pavel was nothing if not determined. The pain wasn't like pain, it was just a stretching burn different than anything Pavel had ever felt.

And under it, getting stronger with every breath and every slide to impale himself deeper, was a satisfaction, a thrill. Fullness, completeness.

Greg was inside of him.

Pavel had to braced himself, had to force quivering legs to sink him down until the breach was complete, and he sat flush on Greg's thighs.

Greg's breathing was a rasp, his hands curled around Pavel's ass, digging into his flesh. Every breath he took seemed to make the cock inside Pavel shift, or pulse, or something that had his breaths catching and his vision blurring.

"Fuck," came a low, harsh whisper, and it took Pavel a moment to realize that it was his own voice. His fingernails were digging into the wood of the headboard, his cock aching between their bodies as if he hadn't come ten minutes ago.

"Pasha." Greg's voice was hoarse. His hands were clenched around Pavel's ass, holding him up and open.

Pavel fought to get his vision to focus. He met Greg's pleasure-dilated eyes and whimpered.

Greg leaned in, and it wasn't until his lips brushed over wet skin under Pavel's eyes that Pavel even realized he had shed tears.

He tilted his face up, forcing those lips to meet his. The idea that Greg would stop, that those deceptive tears would scare him, made Pavel's heart pound even harder than it was already pounding. But he couldn't speak, didn't have the words to reassure him.

Greg seemed to understand, despite his overprotective nervousness. He kissed him lightly, and then with increasing desperation until their mouths were clashing together with frantic need.

Pavel moved, slowly, getting the feel for it. He arched more than lifted, pulled himself at most an inch upwards before sinking back. And every movement of that inch was fucking amazing – he could feel his pulse his his ass, could feel the rasp of Greg's cock against him, inside him.

But his legs were all but useless, despite his need. He tried again, arching up and falling back, whimpering into Greg's mouth.

Greg gasped for air between their kisses and hesitated, running his lips down the track of wetness Pavel had spilled against his will. His mouth, strangely hot and desperate-feeling against Pavel's skin, traced down over his jaw, to his throat.

"Let me..." he murmured into Pavel's skin, and didn't bother trying to finish.

Pavel didn't need him to. He would have let Greg do anything.

Greg's hands moved from Pavel's ass to his thighs, holding him firmly. And he lifted up, somehow managing to get his knees under him. Pavel's weight was nothing for Greg, Pavel knew that well enough by now.

The movements caused a thrum inside Pavel's body as Greg's cock shifted and angled inside of him but didn't slide free. Pavel had to force his fingers to unclench, to dig free from the wood of the headboard and wrap around Greg's neck. As Greg shifted on his knees further from the headboard Pavel managed to get his disobedient leg muscles working just long enough to wrap around Greg's hips until his ankles crossed behind him.

Greg's mouth left his throat only long enough to lower them down, to put Pavel on his back on the disheveled bedspread. And Greg was in control by then, but pleasure or trust or both must have kept his apprehension at bay, because with only a moment's pause to settle himself over Pavel, his hips curled in a fierce roll that thrust him deep and hard into Pavel.

Pavel cried out, harsh and high, and his desperate fingers clenched into Greg's skin since he was denied any other solid hold.

Greg drove into him, slow and steady and so deep it drove Pavel back, pushed his head into the sheets, made his grasping fingernails slip and claw and scratch for some kind of purchase down the broad plane of Greg's back.

And the sounds Greg made, the low, growling grunts that came with every thrust. Pavel wanted to shut himself up, his own uncontrollable moans, just to hear them better, to absorb them into his skin.

Greg moved suddenly, switching to brace himself on his left hand as his right grew tired. Somehow it shifted his body just right, and with his next thrust Pavel felt the roar of pleasure as Greg's cock found his prostate.

His clenching hands seized in Greg's skin and he arched into those thrusts. He heard his own voice, heard cries and 'yes' and 'Greg' and 'oh' over and over again until he was sobbing with it. There was no response to that much pleasure, no fitting way to react, so instead he came apart with it.

When he came again he barely felt it, just a tingle underneath the constant roar of pleasure. When Greg came he cursed against Pavel's throat and plunged in, so deep it made the bed thump against the floor, and stayed planted there as his flesh pulsed and emptied inside of Pavel.

Inside of Pavel. It was the thought Pavel would go back to again and again, once he regained any ability to think. As it was he just clenched himself around Greg, mumbling broken encouragement, as his own body shut own limb by limb and he sank to the bed like he was physically dissolving.

He felt Greg slip free from him after a while, and though his managed to murmur a complaint his aching ass told him it was probably for the best.

He felt the mattress dip around him, felt sudden damp warmth stroking carefully over his stomach, his spent and useless cock.

Pavel pried his eyes open and could have wept, could have shed tears when he saw the dazed devotion on Greg's face as he cleaned him off. Instead he reached out, limp fingers patting at his arm.

"C'mere," he breathed through heavy lips when Greg looked at him.

Greg swallowed and tossed the washcloth to the side and sank down beside him. His body was heated with exertion, damp with sweat, and folded around Pavel like a blanket. If Pavel had had any doubts about his words when he told Greg he loved him earlier, those would have been erased now.

But he didn't have doubts. Not about those words or about anything else.

He knew somehow that Greg didn't need his reassurance that it had been perfect, amazing, beyond anything Pavel had anticipated. He knew, somehow, that when he saw the beginnings of a red line, a scratch he knew would match a pattern of them down Greg's back, he didn't have to apologize. In the morning, or evening – he had lost any notion of what time it was – when they stirred and could speak and react again, he would tut over those scratches and wince at his own sore body and they would laugh and smile and plan to do it again.

Soon.

And often.

Then maybe he'd make Greg go with him to Sickbay to run a regenerator over his scratched back. Maybe he'd ask McCoy to do it, just to see the man's face when he recognized what those scratches were from.

He still owed him for those pamphlets, after all.

For the moment, though, he simply shut his eyes and lay his head against Greg's chest, listening to his heartbeat still trying to slow down.

For the moment he was absolutely content.


	6. Chapter 6

_Summary: The boys have a fight. Pavel overreacts and is eighteen. Greg just doesn't fucking get it. And Hikaru Sulu is the best friend ever._

_Notes: Couple of things. First off, this story was inspired by and written for katmarajade and secretsolitaire over at livejournal, because they are constant in their support and because they requested it. (I take requests. Is that silly?) I just got home from almost ten days in AZ for business, that's why this wasn't up faster. Sorry!_

_Second - the title is from a song, the full line being 'Love is hard, and love is tough, but love is not what you're thinking of'. If you know the song, you're brilliant. Either way, it fits. :-)_

_Right. Story._

_

* * *

_

The thing was, back when he was in school with Pasha Greg sometimes got this kind of possessive feeling. This weird vibe, this voice that said 'mine' whenever he saw Pasha.

It wasn't anything bad, at least Greg didn't think so. But it was there, and strong. It never really faded, Greg just got so used to hearing 'mine' whenever Pasha smiled his way that it sort of turned into white noise. There, but not there.

Except then he fucked Pasha. Then the murmur of 'mine' in the back of Greg's head turned into more of a triumphant scream, which was a little harder to ignore. Every time he saw Pasha, or touched Pasha, or waved goodbye to him in the morning when they went off to their shifts, his mind screamed it.

Pasha was his.

He knew that it maybe wasn't a good thing. He knew what some assholes were like when they got crazy about their lovers. A couple of muscle-head security cadets Greg used to know liked to beat on guys who looked at their girlfriends the wrong way. Seriously put guys in hospitals before, just because they thought the guy laid eyes on their property.

And Ensign Farraday, this girl in his self-defense class, this real sad-eyed soft sort of girl who got his attention the first class by admitting she'd punched someone before...she told Greg after class the next week that it was her old boyfriend she'd hit, because he wouldn't stop hitting her and one day she just couldn't take it anymore.

(He made sure that bastard fucker wasn't serving on the ship, then he promised her a little extra help whenever she wanted it. He really fucking hated bullies, and maybe it was chauvinist or sexist or whatever but he hated them more when they hit women.)

So Greg knew there was a line, and he knew guys like him, who thought with their fists, could cross it faster than anybody.

But he hoped maybe he wouldn't, even while this voice in his head told him that Pasha was his. He didn't figure he'd ever made Pasha afraid of him, and he never planned on that. He knew Pasha well enough to trust him, so when he came across Pasha and his pal Sulu sitting all close murmuring together in the mess, sharing inside jokes or whatever, he was cool with it.

Well, okay. Sometimes it made him feel weird, but only because he thought about what Sulu told him once, about how he didn't think a guy like Greg would fit into the other big parts of Pasha's life. Greg figured he was right, and he figured Sulu did fit in those parts, and sometimes it was hard not to get jealous of that.

Mostly it just made him wish he was smarter.

Dumb or not, though, Greg did know himself pretty well. So even though in theory he could be jealous (a little) and possessive (in his own mind) and even though in actual fact he'd already killed in the name of protecting Pasha (Klingons, though, and bad ones, and they deserved it, didn't they?), he still thought maybe he was doing okay.

As long as he kept everything inside his head, as long as he never turned into one of those bullying bastards he hated, he thought maybe he'd be alright. Maybe somehow he'd be able to make this work, this thing he had with Pasha. The love thing, and all the rest of it.

That's what he figured, anyway. That's what he meant to happen. That's what he wanted.

Given his luck, though, he probably shouldn't've been too surprised when things didn't turn out that way. And he shouldn't have been surprised that when things went to shit, it was his own fucking idiot fault.

* * *

The shore leave was what really made everything go fucked, but Greg thought maybe it started a few days before leave.

Pasha'd been in a bad mood for a while, maybe a week or something? Sometimes he got into bad moods, sure, but this one was different. Usually Greg could kind of talk him out of being mad. Pasha was a happy guy, and he was way too enthusiastic about way too much stuff to stay locked up in a bad mood for very long.

"It's nothing," he said when Greg first bugged him about it. And even though he smiled when he said it, Greg was just all the more certain that it was _some_thing.

"It's just work," he said when Greg pushed. And then, "It's just...I was given some news. Some disappointing news." And then a more honest-feeling "If it was something you could help me with, I'd tell you."

Greg left it alone after that. He did his class and worked his shifts and went back to his quarters and talked a lot to fill the silence and grinned at a lot of stuff that wasn't all that funny just because when he grinned at Pasha, Pasha usually smiled back. And even if it was fake it was something.

Pasha spent a lot of time in Greg's room. That wasn't anything new – Pasha pretty much moved in from the start, and mostly the little ensign quarters he was assigned held books and projects and things Greg didn't know much about. But it was unusual because Pasha usually stayed so busy with so much work, he didn't always spend a lot of actual hours in Greg's rooms.

But that week he was always there when Greg came in from work or class. Sitting around, reading or watching old vids or whatever.

That was the other big thing that made Greg know something was really wrong. It wasn't like Greg knew a lot about how Pasha's brain was wired. A guy like Greg would never understand that. But he thought, silently to himself because it made sense to him even if it wasn't true, that Pasha's brain was just working all the damned time. That it worked really fast and didn't take a break, and so Pasha's work and reading and experiments were things he had to feed it to keep it working like it did.

Like gas in a car, maybe. Like if he didn't have enough input coming in, he might stall out.

So there was that, too. Pasha wasn't keeping his brain busy. Bad sign.

Greg didn't know why, since Pasha wouldn't tell him, so he didn't really know what to do about it. But then, Pasha would talk to him and smile at him and laugh and they'd sleep together and it was all pretty nice, just...something was off.

Pasha didn't want his help, though. "If it was something you could help me with, I'd tell you." That's all he'd say.

Greg just nodded and pulled him close at night and thought about all the things he didn't understand, and all those huge parts of Pasha's life he didn't fit into.

* * *

So that was happening for a while, a week maybe of Pasha acting weird and sad and upset but not telling him anything.

And then the shore leave came.

"You have to stay here?"

Greg smiled, because Pasha looked sincerely upset, and it was better than his blank bad moods. "It's just my turn on the roster. Gotta keep a skeleton crew on the ship, just in case."

"But..." Pasha's brow furrowed like he was trying to think up a way around it. "I was looking forward to..."

Greg smiled. "Me too. I'm sorry about this."

Pasha went to him and heaved a loud sigh, pressing into Greg in silent demand to be held. "What's the good of shore leave without you there?"

Greg held him – of course – and lay his chin on Pasha's curly hair and felt cheered by his disappointment somehow. "Your friends are going down, right? Sulu and the captain and all of them. You'll have fun."

"Maybe." Pasha's arms came around him, fingers tracing up his back. "I don't see how."

"Well..." Greg hesitated. "I mean...if you wanted, there's nothing saying you _have_ to go down just 'cause you're allowed to."

Pasha pulled back and regarded him, a little smile on his lips that looked sincere enough. "Isn't there?"

Greg grinning, feeling a little more confident then. "Nope. So...it's not anything exciting like this Rysus place, probably, but there's so few people staying behind that we'd just about have the whole ship to ourselves."

Pasha's smile vanished and he looked doubtful. "I don't know. Shore leave is a hard reward to let go of. There must be countless bizarre restaurants for Hikaru and Nyota to drag me around to, and there's nothing more comfortable than a strange hotel room all by myself."

Greg's grin got bigger, since he knew Pasha hated his friends' weird taste in food, and he sure as hell hated sleeping alone. "Guess that'd be hard to give up just to spend a little more time with me, huh?"

"Time with you?" Pasha's fingers curled in Greg's shirt. "You drive a hard bargain."

Greg chuckled. "Well, the food and beds are cheaper up here. And people are less likely to kick your ass if you stay on the ship."

Pasha laughed, then blinked. "What?"

Greg shrugged. "Just, the reports we've been getting in security about this planet, there's a lot of write-ups with Starfleet about the natives getting in fights with officers and stuff. There's always something like that, you know, but these fucking Rysians get kinda crazy."

Pasha stepped back, staring at Greg like he was saying something weird. "If it were a dangerous planet we would not have shore leave there."

"Well..." Greg had to stop from rolling his eyes, since sometimes the dangerous parts were why officers wanted to have shore leave places like Rysus.

Drunk officers and drunk natives fighting wasn't anything new. Hell, Starfleet probably wanted to keep Rysus off the shore leave approval lists, but the kind of guys who fought natives on planetside bars went on shore leave looking for just that kind of thing.

Everybody let off steam in their own ways.

Greg didn't bother explaining all of that, though, since Pasha wasn't the kind of guy who understood the fuck-and-fight testosterone thing that drove those kinds of officers.

He just shrugged again. "It's not a real sweet kind of place, that's all. And with me not going down, I just thought it'd be good if you stayed here."

Pasha's eyes narrowed. "I see." His arms came up, folded over his chest. He stared at Greg, no hint of a smile on his face anymore.

Greg blinked, thinking about what he'd said. Wasn't anything bad there, he didn't think. "It was...just a thought. I mean you don't have to stay here if you..."

"But you would prefer I did." Pasha's voice was strange.

Greg didn't know why. He had this weird feeling in his gut that he'd missed something. Still, he answered honestly. "Yeah."

"Because you read a report about some sort of bar fights and now without you to hold my hand you think I would be in danger."

Okay, and something was definitely wrong by then, because Pasha's voice was real soft and flat and he sounded extra-Russian in that way that meant he was mad.

Greg hadn't heard that voice often, and had hardly ever heard it directed at him. He frowned, studying Pasha's clouded face. "I said something wrong?"

"No." Pasha took another step back suddenly, like he was worried about Greg coming closer. He looked at Greg with hard eyes. "No, it's good that I hear this from you. Its important to know..." He looked down at the ground between them, his shoulders slumping.

And by then Greg was really getting nervous. He ambled forward a step, hands itching to reach out. "Hey, look. Whatever I said, it's not...is it the shore leave? Because you can go. It's cool, you know, I wouldn't make you stay here if you want to go."

Pasha shook his head. He turned away. "I do want to go. It's been weeks since our last planetside leave, and I have never seen Rysus." He looked around the quarters, his eyes wide and strange, like he had no idea what to do with himself.

Greg swallowed. "Okay. Should be fun, I guess. Just, you know, be careful."

"Careful." Pasha turned back to him all the sudden, and the sound in his voice that seemed like hurt or sadness was suddenly sharp all over again. Angry. "Be careful? Because I am useless without my bodyguard, is that it? That's what you think, that I am this frail, stupid, useless _child_ who can't defend myself."

"What?" Greg gaped at him, unnerved by the anger. "I never said that. Never said anything like that. What the hell's got you so pissed off?"

"I thought you were different!" Pasha shut his mouth real fast after that, like he didn't mean to say it.

Greg scowled, irritation flickering up in him fast. He'd witnessed too many fights through his life to not respond to one, even if he had no fucking clue why it was happening. "Different from _what_? I don't know what the hell you're even talking about."

"Never mind," Pavel said fast, his cheeks red. His shoulders went back, and his eyes flashed. "I'm going."

"I said okay! Go if you want, I told you it was just some dumb idea."

"No, Greg." Pasha turned and stalked over to the small sofa, where a couple of padds he'd been reading off of were sitting. He plucked them off the table and hugged them to his chest, his movements sharp and terse. "I'm going."

"Wait." The little tendrils of irritation muted then, and Greg swallowed. "Wait, what? You're leaving?"

"Yes. For tonight, and then..." Pasha didn't look at him, just checked the room for anything else to grab.

Tonight. Tonight wasn't forever, but tonight was still leaving, and what the fuck was going on?

"I have my own quarters. I don't need your bed, Greg. I don't need you chasing after me like some guard dog. I have always been able to take care of myself, no matter what anybody thinks."

Pasha turned back to him without getting anything else. His eyes were bright, like he was ready to cry, and Greg itched to go over there. To grab him and make sure whatever it was that hurt him never got to him again.

"Wait," was all he said, though, this strange panic making his voice all tight. "I don't even know what I did."

Pasha sucked in a deep breath and went to the door. "Nothing," he said before he left, in that voice people used when they meant exactly the opposite of what they were saying. "You didn't do anything."

And he left.

And Greg didn't fucking get it.

* * *

He didn't get it the next day, when 'tonight' had come and gone but Pasha didn't show up at his door.

He didn't get it, and he tried. He laid awake all night, couldn't get to fucking sleep without listening to Pasha's quiet breaths in his ear. He laid there and thought about it, thought about what he had said and what Pasha said, and that stupid voice in his head that made him an asshole when he didn't mean to be.

The stupid leave was still a couple days away, and every time Greg heard someone talking about it, being excited and everything, he felt all tense and nervous.

He left Pasha messages at his room. Stupid fucking stammering idiot messages, because Greg wasn't good at talking even when he understood what the fuck was going on.

"Hey, it's me. Again. I just...um, could you comm me, or come up or something? I know I asked you that already, but...maybe just comm me and say no if you aren't coming? Because it's weird not hearing your voice all day, and...fuck, Pasha, I don't know what the hell I did, but if you tell me I'll make it better. No matter what, I'll...I'm just...it's fucking weird here without you, and..."

That's pretty much what he'd say. And then he'd end the recording, because even he was irritated with his own voice so he knew Pasha would get irritated.

He didn't see Pasha during the day since his work only brought him up to the bridge if some serious shit was going on, and there wasn't much excitement just traveling like they were. He hung around the mess a little too long after his meals, watching the doors and ignoring everyone.

And the evening before they were set to arrive at Rysus, someone came in who got his attention.

Sulu didn't sit, just came to where Greg sat and motioned like Greg should get up. "Come on, Harris. You're late."

"Late?" Greg looked at him, unmoving.

Sulu pointed to his wrist the way people did even though nobody wore watches in uniform. "It's five after seven, and Saturday. We have a date and you're late. It's rude."

Greg grimaced. He stood, since he'd been done eating for a long time and he didn't figure Pasha was ever going to show up.

He dropped his tray in the recycler, frowning when Sulu dogged his steps the whole way.

"Look," he said when he reached the door and Sulu kept right on following. "Sorry, guess I should have called or something. But...we don't have to do this shit, okay?"

"This _shit_?" Sulu repeated, eyebrows raised. He spoke the words precisely, like he was offended. He wasn't, though – Greg hadn't managed to offend the guy once. He doubted anything ever got to Sulu.

"I may not have an official class sanctioned by Starfleet like some of us do, but I take my responsibilities seriously. From seven to nine every Saturday, I'm your teacher."

Greg started down the corridor the opposite way from where Sulu was gesturing. He really didn't want to deal with this crap tonight. His mood was shit the last couple of days, and he couldn't help wondering how many hours Sulu got to spend with Pasha that day, when Greg didn't even get a god damned response to his stupid messages.

Sulu followed him without comment all the way to the turbolift, and got on right at Greg's heels.

Stubborn prick. Greg scowled, knowing Sulu would chase him all the way to his damned quarters. He stamped down on his anger and faced Sulu.

Sulu looked back with innocent eyes. "What?"

But Greg couldn't think of what to say. He didn't want to talk out all the shit with Pavel to this guy who was...not a stranger anymore, really, but not a friend. But he knew that as nice a guy as Sulu was, those two hours a week in a training room didn't make them close. It didn't make Greg anything more than Pasha's boyfriend, not to Sulu. And he didn't even fucking know if he was that anymore.

So. Shit. He couldn't say anything without saying everything.

Sulu, though, he was a good guy. And smart. And he did see Pasha, worked right beside him for hours every day, so he had to know what was going on. Maybe Pasha explained it to him. Shit, maybe Greg could get Sulu to tell him, because he hadn't fucking figured it out yet.

Sulu leaned back against the rail as the 'lift took them to the fourth level. "So Pavel's sleeping in his own room suddenly," he said, his voice mild and his expression only vaguely curious.

Greg tensed and wanted to punch a wall. He looked at the doors of the lift. "Yeah."

There was a moment when Sulu didn't talk, and Greg had time to hope he'd shut up about it.

"You know he's just angry right now. Pavel...he's good at a lot of things, but dealing with his emotions isn't one of them."

Greg frowned back at Sulu. "What're you talking about?"

"I mean, he's ticked off at Starfleet and he's taking it out on you. It sucks, and I've told him as much. But you might have to give him a little time to get over it."

"Starfleet." Greg blinked. "What's he mad at Starfleet for?"

Sulu studied him, frowning suddenly. "Because they denied his request. He told you about their answer, didn't he?"

Greg hesitated. "What request?"

Sulu let out a breath, kind of a hiss. "His work with Spock. The proposed research into the Vulcan black hole. They had to submit a request for approval, and..." He stopped suddenly, frowning at Greg. "You have no idea what I'm talking about."

Greg shook his head, his face heating unpleasantly.

Sulu frowned deeper. "I swear, he is the dumbest genius I've ever met."

"Hey." Greg scowled. "He's not dumb. If this is something to do with his science work, he doesn't talk to me about that kind of stuff. Never has. That's just how we do things, and it's fine. So don't call him dumb."

Sulu held up a hand like he was surrendering, but his brow stayed knit up as the lift doors opened. "I don't get it. Why would that be how you do things? I know how important this work is to Pavel, why wouldn't he--"

"Because," Greg cut in, sharp. He didn't need Sulu bitching about Pasha, and he didn't want to feel that little hot unhappy feeling in his belly that he got from time to time thinking about Pasha's huge, involved life outside of Greg.

He shot Sulu a challenging look. "Because I don't fit in with that part of his life. Told me that yourself once, so don't act all shocked about it now."

Sulu didn't answer. He leaned back against the lift wall, frowning to himself.

Well, fuck it. Greg wasn't going to stand around waiting. He stalked out of the lift, and only looked back when he was getting close to the door of his quarters.

Sulu hadn't followed him.

* * *

The plan was the ship would stay in geo-sync around Rysus for three days. Regulations said that a ship's captain could dictate the terms of shore leave – for some ships that would have meant all the crew going down in rotation for like a day. For Kirk it meant obliging a handful of crew to stay on board and kicking the rest off with a cheerful "be back before 1800 hours in three days, or we're leaving without you."

Greg didn't mind it. Well, this time especially, but usually he didn't mind. Some people bitched, the ones who got stuck on ship. But a shore leave that only meant like ten hours on a planet before coming back up so the next rotation could go wasn't exactly relaxing.

Mostly he just didn't give a good shit. If he was thinking about shift rotations it meant he was just trying not to think about other things, it didn't mean he suddenly had some kind of fucking opinion.

He told himself he didn't care, and he stayed in his rooms while most people left (and it made him laugh, and it fucking hurt, because half the shit in his rooms was Pasha's, and what the hell did he wear when all his clothes were in Greg's closet, and why didn't he just come back, damn it).

He did leave Sulu a message the morning of leave, asked him to keep an eye on Pasha. He didn't realize he was as tense as he was until after his shift on the empty ship, when he found a message from Sulu that just said 'I always do' and he suddenly felt all this stress kind of ease out.

Pasha had been his for almost two years. If it pissed Pasha off that Greg looked out for him...well, that wasn't going to change just because he took off.

And was that it? Greg just kept tossing it around in his head, over and over again, trying to find the why and the what. He knew it was him, something he said, some dumb thoughtless fucking thing. But he didn't know exactly what.

Sulu said Pasha was mad at Starfleet. Some kind of request got denied. But Pasha got mad because he didn't like Greg being worried about him. Because he figured Greg thought he couldn't take care of himself, or something.

Which was dumb. Well, it was Pasha, so not dumb. But not right, either. Greg knew he could take care of himself – he'd taught him how to do it, after all. But Pasha was right that Greg did worry about him. Like a guard dog, Pasha said. Bodyguard.

And that was true. But that had always been true. It never bothered him before now, did it? When Greg went psycho on a bunch of Klingons who hurt Pasha, Pasha never got mad at him for it. He let Greg sit there with him in the sickbay until he got out, and hold on to him extra hard at night, and he never said anything if it bothered him.

Fuck, but Greg wasn't good at this kind of shit. He couldn't put it together in any kind of way that made sense.

He almost wished he had someone around to talk to about it. Like Pasha talked to Sulu. But Greg didn't talk to anyone but Pasha about personal shit.

He used to talk to his buddy Ray, sometimes, before Ray got killed on an away team mission. But Ray would've just laughed at him for being a bitch about one fight with his boyfriend. He would've called Greg a pussy and told him to go do something about it instead of sitting around wondering about shit he wasn't going to figure out on his own.

Maybe he'd see if Sulu wouldn't mind going over it.

Or...

Well, hell. Maybe he'd take Ray's imaginary advice.

It wasn't exactly fair, was it, that Pasha got all pissed off over something and took off without even giving Greg a chance. Maybe Greg did need to just stop being a bitch and corner him somewhere and make him talk about it.

But when he thought about that he thought about sometimes when his dad and mom were fighting, and dad would corner her somewhere so she couldn't get away, and he'd start wailing on her if she kept on fighting back.

The part of Greg that lived in fear of becoming his dad one day thought maybe it was better to be a pussy than to be that.

He just really needed someone to tell him what to do.

* * *

Chief Porter was part of the skeleton crew that stayed behind, so Greg went by his office at the start of his shift to see where he wanted Greg that day – rotations and schedules got fucked during shore leaves, since the same duties didn't have to be done.

Porter looked up at him with a smirk when Greg walked in the second day of shore leave.

"Hell, Harris, I'm surprised you didn't sneak down to that planet and start killing guys."

"Sir?" Greg didn't like Porter much – he kind of had that thing some officers did where he wanted to be pals with all the guys and never liked being a boss.

Kirk kind of had that, the wanting to be pals thing, but he could turn it off when shit got serious. Greg had seen him do it.

Porter, though, he was kind of always stuck in smirky pal-mode. So when Porter said some weird shit like that, it could've been a joke or there could have been something serious behind it, and Greg hated not being able to tell.

Porter sat back, nodding at the communications panel he was monitoring for planetside transmissions.

"I picked up the request for direct transport to sickbay. That Russian kid you're screwing? Just figured if you weren't up there with him you'd've snuck back to..."

He probably said more, but Greg didn't hear it. He turned and was out the door before he could remember that Porter actually was his boss and he was signing in at the start of a shift, and not exactly free to leave.

Direct transport to sickbay. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He was in the lift in a flash, and at the doors to sickbay in another flash. McCoy was down planetside, he remembered, but the blond nurse, Chapel, she looked up when he charged in, and with a faint smile she nodded towards one of the back corners.

Smile. Smile meant nobody was dying, right?

Greg couldn't slow down enough to worry about it. He looked around the all-but-empty sickbay, and one little curtain was drawn around one little bed. Just the sat of it, kind of alone and forlorn and all, made him slow down.

Jesus, Pasha. Pasha was hurt. Days of nothing, of silence and confusion and wondering what the fuck had gone wrong, and he was about to see Pasha. Hurt. In some sickbay bed. Again.

Fuck, if he was twenty years older he'd've had a fucking heart attack by now.

Luckily Pasha wasn't alone, because as Greg got closer he saw someone's boots under the curtain, and heard Sulu's voice.

"--to go back down there. Come off it, Pavel."

"You should."

Pasha. Greg nearly smiled hearing his voice all thick and Russian and tired, but alive and okay and it was his voice.

"This is stupid. Just go back and enjoy the rest of your shore leave."

"I'm not going to leave you alone after something like that."

Pasha cursed, low and Russian, and sounded somehow just as mad as he'd sounded when he left Greg's quarters days ago. "I am in the middle of sickbay, Hikaru. I don't need to be coddled any more than the nurses will coddle me. Just get out."

"Uh huh. You know how well that attitude of yours works on me."

"Hikaru."

"Pavel."

Greg approached quietly, interested. Sulu just sort of got mad right back at Pasha, though he did it in that weird cheerful way Sulu did everything. That was kind of cool, that they were close enough friends to do that. Greg thought he might ask Sulu sometime how he did it without getting scared of Pasha leaving for good.

"I'm not leaving until they give you the all-clear, at least. I'm not going to have any fun planetside thinking about you all pathetic and alone up here. So shut up and heal."

Pavel muttered something low that Greg didn't catch.

"Well, I could always arrange someone else to keep you company. Harris is still on the ship, isn't he?"

Greg perked up at that, smiling. Sulu was a fucking good guy.

But Pavel answered him fast, and wiped Greg's smile away. "_Bozhe moi,_ Hikaru, that's the last thing I need. He was insufferable before now. All I need is for him to think he was right about me. I'll never get him to leave me alone."

Greg found that he'd stopped moving, and his feet were stuck. He was so close he could hear Pasha shifting on the bed, could see Sulu's outline behind the thin privacy curtain.

Sulu spoke softly but Greg heard every word. "Sometimes you're such a shit it's hard to remember why I like you so much."

"I don't want to argue about Greg again. Not now."

"Tough luck."

"No, Hikaru. You call me a shit if you want to, but I would rather sit here alone than have to deal with him fretting over me like I'm his child instead of his lover."

"You don't think he's going to find out anyway?"

"When people come back from leave, yes. By then I will be out of here and able to avoid him." There was a pause, and Pavel's voice was softer suddenly. More sincere. "It is humiliating how he treats me, now that I know what he thinks. I can't deal with it right now, on top of all this. Please, Hikaru."

Sulu sighed.

But whatever he was going to say in answer, he never said. Because there were some movement behind Greg, and a voice barked out across the empty sickbay.

"Yo, Harris. Porter's asking for you."

Greg blinked at the curtain. He couldn't move, even to turn around and see which guard it was who was marching up behind him.

The curtain opened suddenly. Sulu's face was pale, but when he saw Greg standing so close he seemed almost relieved.

Greg's eyes didn't stay on him, though. He was helpless to keep from looking past him at the bed. At Pasha.

God, he looked awful. His face was strange and swollen in that way that meant he'd been hurt, but the dermal regenerators had taken the bruises and blood away already. His eyes were round and bright and injured, his hair was a mess. His hands curled around the sheet they'd pulled over him, and he stared back at Greg like he was scared of him. Like he was scared Greg would go over there and start..._humiliating_ him. Again.

Greg backed up, because he couldn't hurt Pasha. But he had hurt Pasha. Somehow. And he didn't know what to fucking do.

"Harris, you deaf? Come on, the chief needs you asap."

He turned. Purcell, one of the guards he didn't know all that well.

Porter was asking for him. And he was a fucking security officer, and that's the only thing in the world he was sure about at all suddenly.

So he went.

* * *

Rysus was a strange planet from the start. It was heavier than earth. Gravity, Porter had briefed him quickly before sending him down. The force of gravity was just a fraction stronger than earth, so everything weighed more, and felt heavier.

Greg didn't like it, feeling like his arms and legs moved a fraction slower than he wanted them too. But he knew his body, and he figured out fast just how much extra effort it took to move as fast as he was used to moving.

By the time he reached Kirk to report for duty, he thought he had his shit figured out. He'd be sore when he got back, and he'd tire more easily than he was used to, but he was moving at the same speed as always.

"Sir."

"At ease, Lieutenant Commander." Kirk returned his salute, slow and heavy because of the gravity thing, and spoke sharply, and Greg was reminded all over again that, unlike Porter, when Kirk wanted to be The Captain he didn't fuck around.

Kirk didn't lose the Captain attitude, but when his salute lowered he relaxed a little. "Appreciate you coming down, Harris. Unfortunately, we've got reason to believe we're going to need some extra security tonight. Come on, I'll brief you on the situation."

Greg didn't ask why Kirk asked for him personally – he suspected, and he hoped. But Kirk talked around it, so Greg didn't ask.

Kirk walked him around this dusty, heavy road, where almost half the people in sight were in Starfleet uniforms.

"You might have heard," Kirk said as they went, "we've already had an incident with a group of natives."

Greg ground his teeth, thinking of Pasha all pale and hurt in sickbay, but just nodded when Kirk looked at him. "The Chief didn't give me any details, sir."

Kirk flashed a tight grin. "Details. Those are the problem. There was an incident a few hours ago between one of my officers and a group of natives, but we don't have any witnesses. What we have is a group of four natives who vanished from a bar at the same time as our officer. My officer was found shortly after, badly injured, and the natives were spotted a couple of hours ago bragging about pushing around Starfleet."

Kirk wasn't saying Pasha's name, Greg noticed. Keeping things official. But he'd asked for Greg personally, and he hadn't told Porter any of this. That meant something.

"Now," Kirk went on as they approached a small, dusty building crowded with people. Drinks in hand, voices too loud, and bars were the same on every planet Greg had ever been on.

"Starfleet does not believe in retaliation, especially on ally planets. If we believe we know who was responsible for the situation earlier, it's policy to submit those names to the authorities planetside and let them attend to their own people."

Greg frowned at him.

Kirk seemed serious, though. "You're not here to retaliate, Harris. You got me?"

"Yes, sir," Greg answered, even as his hand itched to form a fist.

Kirk met his eyes a moment and flashed a sudden, wicked kind of smile. "You're here because when I go into this bar where these suspected natives are hanging out, I might be at risk. And if I talk too loud about this shithole planet and piss those natives off, and they take it upon themselves to repeat their earlier actions against an officer of Starfleet, I'd like someone to watch my back."

Greg understood suddenly. He straightened and looked at the crowded doorway of the bar.

"We're not allowed retaliation, Harris," Kirk went on, clapping a hand around Greg's back like they were pals. "But we're allowed to defend ourselves. So how about you and me go put ourselves in some danger."

When he walked through the door Kirk shocked Greg by lurching to the side, nearly running into a guy, and shouting all slurred and weird like he was drunk.

"Who's a guy got to blow to get a decent drink on this piece of shit planet?"

Five minutes later Greg reached out and caught a hammy rough-skinned alien fist before it could pound into Kirk's face in the dark street behind the bar, and suddenly he was free to pound into the four fuckers who had led Kirk outside without worrying about Starfleet policy.

Somewhere between the bar and the fight behind it, Greg realized that his captain was fucking awesome.

Didn't make the day less of a disaster, but when Kirk flashed him an adrenaline-drunk grin over four groaning or dead-silent prone alien shitheads, Greg returned it.

* * *

***two***

* * *

Pavel Chekov was only eighteen years old, yes, and he didn't have very many truly awful moments in those eighteen years. So the odds that two moments that might very easily rank in his top five worst of all time would happen in the same two-week period...

Well, he didn't believe in luck, or fate. But, to borrow a phrase from Hikaru...it really sucked.

Moment one came with a communication packet from the Starfleet Science Academy. An answer, finally, to the proposal he and Spock had worked so hard on.

Pavel had a superior memory, and he doubted he would ever forget that communication. The sincere interest in their project, the fascination in their proposal and the particular angle of their research.

And then, the damning paragraph.

Cold and clinical and numbing, it spoke of the Academy's confusion over Commander Spock's proposed research partner. It used words like youth, and inexperience, and 'we doubt very highly he has the emotional maturity,' and ended with the implication that the citizens of New Vulcan would be fascinated by the research but offended by the researcher.

Offended.

Pavel had been beaten and bruised before, but he had never been struck so hard. It was the official response from Starfleet that the entire Vulcan race would take his involvement as an insult. Because of his age, his inexperience. His involvement, in a project whose very proposal he had spent a hundred hours of research to assemble, was _offensive.  
_  
Pavel had always been different than most people around him, and he had developed a thick skin towards the taunts of others. But this. This was a judgment from the very people he thought of as his future peers. There were the top minds of Earth.

And they thought he was a joke. A child. Emotionally immature.

It was humiliating to go to the bridge for his shift after that letter arrived. To face Spock, knowing he had received the exact same message at the same time. Spock was his mentor. His superior in title, his teacher. A motherless son, and when Pavel thought about how hard it had been to approach Spock with his ideas...

Starfleet thought he was emotionally immature? They would never understand the strength it took for Pavel to go to a man whose mother had died with Pavel's hands on the controls, and to tell that man that he wanted to study the hole that had swallowed her.

How could he not be devastated by that response? How could he not wallow in his devastation, look for signs that others felt the same way about him? How could be not take every ruffled hair as an insult, every remark about his age as a slap in the face?

How could he stay with Greg when he discovered that Greg too thought of him as nothing but a helpless kid? How could he love someone who pitied him? Who saw him as weak where he had always thought he was strong?

But...now.

The second of those two worst moments, the blow to drive him back even as he was still reeling from the first: he looked past Hikaru into the muted white stillness of sickbay, and saw Greg's face looking back at him.

He thought he was angry at Greg. He thought he was humiliated, insulted, devastated, because the man he loved thought of him as a child. He thought that ignoring Greg's comm messages and avoiding him on the ship was the only possible way to react.

Then he saw Greg. He took one look at Greg's white face and horrified eyes, and his heart almost cracked right in two.

Even if Greg thought of him as a child, Greg loved him. Pavel didn't doubt that, even when his wounded pride made him walk out of Greg's room. Greg loved him, and Greg would never do anything to hurt him.

Pavel didn't want to hurt Greg, either. Pavel loved Greg, despite his hurt and his pride and his anger. Being away from him was strange, and wrong. Pavel laid awake at night and longed for Greg's low voice rumbling in his ear. Greg's arms around him, Greg's sheepish smile.

He was mad when he walked out of Greg's quarters. He was hurt to think that for all they had shared together, Greg agreed with Starfleet about him. He meant to sleep in his own room for a night or two, sulk, cry, get his system clear of it all. And then figure things out from there.

But he talked himself out of figuring things out.

His brain told him that being with someone who treated him like a child was unhealthy. Everything else inside of him argued, how could Greg be unhealthy when being without him felt so wrong?

His brain argued right back that he was just used to Greg, and that so many people were so shocked by their relationship that it obviously wasn't natural.

Then he looked up from that hospital bed, cold and afraid, when he heard someone say Greg's name. He looked past Hikaru as he pulled back the curtain and he saw Greg standing there, haunted and pale and staring. And his brain was silenced.

Greg met his eyes for just a moment. Then he turned away, shoulders slumped as if he had done something wrong.

Pavel watched him go, mind desperately playing back whatever he'd just been saying, whatever Greg might have heard. Humiliating, he'd said to Hikaru. Humiliating, and insufferable, and Pavel didn't want to have to deal with him.

When Greg was gone, out the door on the heels of another security guard Pavel didn't know, the silence was broken by Hikaru.

Hikaru turned to him, and Pavel nearly blanched at the sheer anger brewing behind his best friend's eyes.

"You are so stupid."

Pavel wanted to argue, but his brain was still stricken into silence and he couldn't think of a response.

Hikaru stood over him, folding his arms across his chest. "You are so damned _stupid_ sometimes, Pavel, I don't understand it. You know that guy loves you, and this is what you do in response?"

"You don't understand, Hikaru." Pavel's response lacked heat, but Hikaru was radiating enough for both of them.

"What don't I understand?"

Pavel shook his head, but when he looked away from Hikaru's clouding expression his mind only showed him Greg's devastated face instead.

He blinked hot eyes and drew in a breath. "He agrees with Starfleet."

Hikaru sucked in a breath through his teeth. "Come on. He wouldn't...he does?"

Pavel nodded, miserable. He sat up in bed, body aching from the fight. Those Neanderthals had hurt him, but nothing bad. He didn't have to be there, but of course Kirk ordered the doctors to watch him overnight. Because he was poor baby Pavel.

He scrubbed at his face with a shivering hand, trying to clear away the threat of tears from his eyes. "He does. He think I'm a child who needs to be tended."

"Pavel." Hikaru hesitated, his anger down to a low simmer behind his eyes. "I'm sure that's not true."

"It is. He told me as much himself." Pavel tilted his head back against the wall behind the bed, wishing for a moment that he really was a child. That he could sob and hug Hikaru like his life depended on it, and get back a little of the affection he felt so bereft of without Greg.

"He wanted me to stay on the ship so he could protect me, because he read some report about incidents with natives." Pavel looked at Hikaru suddenly. "And yes, I recognize the irony about protesting that from a sickbay bed, but I talked my way into this...this fight, and I can handle the aftereffects."

Hikaru's brow furrowed. He moved in and sat down on the edge of the bed, facing Pavel with a look on his face like his thoughts were only half-formed and he was waiting for input.

Pavel's hands settled on the sheets, and he found himself looking at a lines of scratches on his knuckles that the nurse had missed.

"Every man on this crew has or will get into a fight like this. I have to be allowed to make those same sort of mistakes, or what am I?" He sighed, turning his hand palm-up on the sheet to put those scratches out of sight. "I am a pet, a half an officer. Not capable of the same things regular officers are expected to do."

He looked up at Hikaru, grateful to see him looking thoughtful instead of angry by then. He found himself leaning forward, speaking seriously, wanting to be heard.

"I love Greg," he said, intent. "But I can't love who I am in his mind. I don't love myself helpless and young and weak. And to really love someone, I think, you have to be able to love who you are when you're with them. The person that you are in their eyes. Does that make sense?"

Hikaru blinked, that mild surprise coming and going from his face that said Pavel had just said something Hikaru hadn't expected to hear. Those moment came less and less the longer the two of them were friends, but now and then Hikaru still seemed to forget that Pavel was intelligent enough despite his age to have learned things that weren't in textbooks.

"It makes sense," he said slowly, regarding Pavel. "And I agree with you, though I haven't thought about it in those exact terms before."

Pavel nodded, for a moment disappointed at the agreement. As if in some small way he had wanted Hikaru to argue, to convince him it was alright to love Greg despite this.

"Then you understand." He drew in a strengthening breath and looked over at the spot where Greg had been standing. "I don't want to hurt him, but...it's for the best that he knows we are through. Because I can't bring myself to end it directly." He looked back at Hikaru, his eyes hot and his vision a little blurred at the edges.

Hikaru frowned at him, and over at that spot Greg had been. "You should tell him all this, you know. Especially if you really care about him as much as you say."

Pavel shook his head. "Why? To give him a chance to argue with something I know to be true? Or to ask him to change it? I may have only had the one relationship, Hikaru, but I know that asking someone to change themselves never works." He sat up, forcing himself to look back at that spot yards away. "This is the only way things can be."

"Huh." Hikaru slid from the cot onto his feet. "Starfleet...that message they sent. What was it they called you? Immature? Young?"

Pavel frowned but nodded, and it still hurt almost as much to hear as it did to read the first time.

Hikaru regarded him. "You know I love you, Pasha. You're my best friend, and I am in complete awe of you so often it's silly. But this? What you're doing with Greg?"

Pavel swallowed, meeting his eyes though there was something in Hikaru's face he wanted to turn away from.

Hikaru shook his head, turning and moving towards the doors. He spoke over his shoulder, but didn't look back.

"This is you proving Starfleet right."

* * *

He couldn't sleep in his tiny room all alone.

He couldn't eat in the mess for fear of running into Greg. He couldn't meet Hikaru's eyes. He couldn't breathe between eighteen- and twenty-hundred hours that Friday, when he knew Greg was teaching and being brilliant and helping so many people.

He couldn't talk to Kirk, because whispers said he had beamed up from shore leave in mid-laugh with Greg, and apparently whatever had taken Greg down to that planet had brought him back up with a new friend.

Spock approached him after one silent, interminable shift. "Ensign. You realize of course that I disagree with Starfleet's decision. Perhaps I should have spoken about this sooner, given your waning concentration on the bridge recently. I think the decision should be overturned, and I believe the majority of Vulcan survivors would as well. I could contact New Vulcan for testaments to that affect."

Then he couldn't talk to Spock anymore, because the idea of an entire species having to write 'but admiral, he's really a good boy' letters to Starfleet was humiliating beyond anything else he could think of.

His life was getting worse by the second, it seemed, and he had no idea when it had all spiraled so far down that he couldn't seem to reverse the descent.

He missed Greg.

* * *

And then Hikaru cornered him on the lift after a shift and wouldn't let him get off at his level. Instead he grabbed Pavel's arm and didn't say a word as he marched him off the lift on a different level, and walked him right up to a painfully familiar door.

"Open it," Hikaru said, pointing at the door.

Pavel swallowed and wanted to be safe in his quiet, miserable quarters. "Hikaru."

"He isn't there, he's meeting me in the gym for practice. And being late is rude, so open the damned door before you make me late."

Pavel only looked at Hikaru long enough to recognize that steel in his dark eyes – Hikaru was as easy-going a person as Pavel ever knew. Most of the time. When he got his heels dug in to something, though, he was absolutely unmovable.

He swallowed again and reached uncertainly for the entry pad to put in a code he knew as well as his own door. "He's probably changed the code by--"

The door swished open.

Pavel shut his mouth and moved in when Hikaru nudged him. He looked around, his gut clenching at the sight of all his things, his journals and padds and the framed photo of his parents from when his mother was alive. All untouched.

There was a box, a slim plastic storage case, sitting on the floor beside the small sofa. It sat open and waiting, and when Pavel past it he looked in to see one of his books laying at the bottom. One book.

He could almost see Greg standing there after putting that book in, arguing with himself over whether he really ought to pack Pavel's things up.

He saw a small stack of dishes sitting by the recycler, and the wrinkled uniform jacket slung over the back of the couch. His throat worked – Greg wasn't particularly neat before Pavel moved into his space. For Pavel's sake he tried, but it looked like he was slowly starting to forget the urge to be tidy.

Pavel wanted to look around at everything, to pick up that wrinkling duty jacket, to pull his book out of that horrible box.

But Hikaru grabbed his arm after only a few moments, and led Pavel in a line straight to the bedroom. When they were through the door Hikaru turned to him, steel determination on his face.

"I'm going to meet Greg for practice. You are going to sit here, in this bedroom. And you're not going to move, no matter how long it takes anyone to show up here."

Pavel sighed against the thickness in his throat. "Hikaru, this is useless. Whatever Greg or I might say to each other isn't going to--"

"You don't seem to understand me." Hikaru stared at him, hard. "You aren't going to say anything. You're going to stay in the bedroom, and you're going to keep your mouth shut. It's not a request, Ensign, it's an order. Sit down."

Pavel couldn't manage to glare at Hikaru like he wanted to, so he went to the hard-backed chair against the wall and sat, petulant.

"If you leave before I say you can..." Hikaru shook his head as if he was at a loss for a threat sufficiently vicious. For a moment his wall of firm strength slipped down, and he seemed almost pleading. "Just don't leave."

Pavel wanted to answer, but Hikaru was out the door before he could.

Pavel was left in silence, staring at the bed he shared with Greg since his first night on the Enterprise. The bed Greg held him in as they drifted to sleep. The bed Greg fucked him in that first amazing time. They stroked and rubbed and touched in that bed, laughed and murmured to each other and said I love you like the words were some kind of mystical revelation.

He wanted to crawl in, bury himself under the covers, smell Greg's scent until he fell into the peaceful sleep he couldn't get in his own small, cold bed.

He hated Hikaru sometimes.

But he obeyed, sitting in that chair and replaying too many memories, waiting for Greg to show up and find him there, and for the whole ugly thing to start again.

He had to wait less time than he expected. Hikaru and Greg didn't keep any regular schedule, but they spent at least an hour in the gym whenever they met for practice. But it couldn't have been twenty minutes before Pavel heard the swish of the outer door open, and the thump of footsteps.

Before he could decide if he wanted to run or throw himself at Greg, he was stilled by Greg's voice.

"Dunno what you're making such a big deal about."

"Easy." Hikaru's voice, cheerful and bright, answered Greg's rumble. "Your focus is horrible, and it's getting worse every time I see you. I'm not going to let you insult the sword by practicing without giving it your full attention."

A pause, and a heavy thump. Greg's gym duffel, Pavel recognized, dropping to the floor by the couch.

"Shit. I guess that's fair. I'm sorry, you know. Just..."

"Just what?"

"I don't know. Just."

"Not good enough."

Pavel recognized that tone. Hikaru used it on him when he wanted to get some reticent story out of him. It was his persuasive voice.

He frowned, but stood and moved to the wall, approaching the doorway quietly.

"I don't wanna talk about it, Sulu."

"You think I followed you back here for my health? I don't think you've talked to anyone about anything, and if you ask me that's why your concentration is shot. The last few practices, and when I force my presence on you in the mess at meals, it's like watching a vid on the dangers of depression."

Pavel winced – he hid himself away lately, he didn't know what anyone did outside of their shifts. It was ridiculously easy to picture Greg sitting alone, or silent in a crowd of chattering security officers.

"I don't think you've got a lot of friends up here," Hikaru went on, cheerful. "But I count myself as one of them. That means I have the right to bully you into confessing when something's wrong."

There was a heavy pause, and a low sigh. "Not like you don't already know what's wrong."

"Mmm. Yeah, I've had a few talks with Pavel about it, actually."

"Yeah?" Greg sounded surprised, like he didn't figure anyone but him actually cared about the whole situation.

"Yeah. But...come on, Greg. It's been a couple weeks now. Don't you think it was maybe for the best that all this happened?"

Pavel flinched and turned to the open doorway, wanting to glare out at Hikaru.

When Greg didn't answer right away Pavel's glare faded and he edged in closer, almost holding his breath.

"I don't know," Greg said finally. There was some movement, and a thump Pavel knew was Greg dropping onto the couch. "Maybe."

"I know you liked him," Hikaru went on instantly, and there was a lighter sound as he sat himself beside Greg. "But you two...I just don't think it would have worked, you know?"

It did work, Pavel wanted to bark out. It worked for two years, that was a lifetime at his age. That was forever.

Hikaru went on, dismissive. "He's kind of young for you, right?"

"Nah." Pavel could almost hear the shrug in Greg's voice. "It's just he's too damned smart for me. He needs to be with a guy he can talk to about...things. Important things. And I'm not that guy."

"No?"

Greg's voice was thick even though his tone was casual. He was trying, Pavel could hear, to talk about this like it was just any old subject. But it took effort.

"Come on, Sulu. I mean...he used to tell me he didn't care about all that. About me being a lunkhead, you know? Said his friends gave him a lot of shit about it, but he said he really didn't care. But then this thing you told me about, the thing he was all upset over before that fucking shore leave..."

"His research project."

"Yeah. I mean, he doesn't care that I don't understand half the shit he does, but he didn't tell me nothing about all that. He needs to find somebody he can talk to about it, so they don't fuck up with him the way I did."

"Hmmm." Hikaru sounded thoughtful. "So what happened? What did you do to fuck up?"

Greg laughed, and Pavel wanted to cry listening to it. That was Greg's hurting laugh. The laugh he'd use to dismiss his feelings whenever he started talking about his family back home, or when he told Pavel about that man he'd slept with years ago when he moved to California to start at the Academy.

"I still don't fucking know. I heard him talking to you...in sickbay, you know."

Pavel winced.

"So I guess it was me being all overprotective and everything? And it had to have been that shore leave, when I asked if he didn't maybe want to stay here instead of going down."

"So why did you ask him that?"

"I dunno, 'cause I wanted him here. That planet wasn't all that safe, and I wasn't gonna be down there with him to look out for him."

Pavel stared at the floor, his chest aching as he heard his own fears reflected.

"You don't think he can take care of himself?"

"Pasha?" Greg sounded surprised. "Sure he can. I mean, he's not big like me, but he can get out of a fight easy enough. I saw those shitheads, the ones who hurt him. They were fucking huge, and they outnumbered him. Wasn't his fault what happened."

It kind of was, but Hikaru was nice enough not to tell Greg that. Pavel had been angry when he went down to the planet. He drank far too much and spoke to loudly and too angrily, and drew attention to himself. He didn't pull back when those aliens started to react, and he could have. He thought he may have been able to get himself out of it, but he was too angry and hurt and drunk to try.

"Well, if you're so sure about that why did you care you couldn't be there with him?"

Greg sighed like Hikaru had missed some major point. "Come on, Sulu. Security officers aren't here because all the rest of you guys are helpless weaklings. Most officers can fight. But that don't mean they should have to fight."

"Okay, but you're not talking about an away mission here. It's shore leave."

Greg snorted. "You gonna act like shore leave with a bunch of drunk officers and a pack of upset natives doesn't end in as many fights as away missions do?"

Hikaru sounded amused. "Okay, I'll give you that."

"Anyway, I tell the guys in my class, all the time – there's no such thing as a good fight. Nobody in their right mind wants to throw down if they don't have to. So if me being around keeps other people from having to fight, hell. That's my whole job. I'm not about to turn it off around Pavel just cause I'm off-duty."

Pavel frowned, leaning back against the wall.

It didn't sound like such an unforgivable offense, really, when it came from Greg directly. Was that why Hikaru told him to talk to Greg, and got so angry when he refused? Was that why he staged this whole thing?

Then again, it didn't change Pavel's belief that he was weak in Greg's eyes, and that he would feel weak whenever he was with Greg if he let it go on.

"This may be a dumb observation," Hikaru said suddenly, the same blasse cheerfulness in his voice, "but if he doesn't like you being so protective maybe you need to learn to shut it off, huh?"

Pavel looked up, his eyes on the far wall but his focus on the silence from the next room.

"You don't get it, Sulu. You really don't. And it doesn't fucking matter anymore, anyway."

"Come on, Greg. You're not getting rid of me, so talk."

Greg sounded quieter suddenly, though Pavel felt like he was somehow listening even harder. "You really think of me as a friend?"

"Yeah. I do." Hikaru answered as firmly and confidently as Pavel might have hoped.

"Huh. Well...might make you mad, but sometimes I get really fucking jealous of you." There was a pause, like Greg expected Hikaru to respond, to be angry, to demand reasons. But Pavel knew Hikaru better than that, and after a mild pause Greg went on.

"Just...because you can do so fucking much. We all heard stories about those Romulans you and the captain fought off, and now I've seen you with that sword so I know you're a badass. But...you've got all this other shit, too. Got a degree in some shit I don't _even_ understand, and you're on the bridge and at the helm and everything."

His voice went even quieter, and Pavel found himself leaning in, close to the open doorframe.

"And Pavel."

"He's my best friend," Hikaru answered easily.

"I know. And I'm not saying I thought you two were fucking, or even wanted to. He says you like girls, and he likes...you know."

Pavel almost smiled at the sheepishness in Greg's voice.

Hikaru played along, sounding way too innocent to really be innocent. "He likes what?"

"He's a size queen," Greg answered, some kind of life back in his low voice.

Pavel nearly laughed, even bringing a hand up to cover his mouth just in case.

"He, uh...he told you about that, huh?" Hikaru chuckled.

"Uh huh." Greg paused, and the life drained right back out of his voice again. "But no, it wasn't jealousy like that. It was just...you could talk about things. That project you told me about that got him so upset..."

Pavel's smile faded.

"He can't talk to me about that kind of shit, and it makes me so fucking jealous sometimes that you know all this stuff about him that I don't. He doesn't care that I'm not...that I'm this fucking dumbass. He says he doesn't. But shit like this...it makes _me_ care."

Pavel turned to the doorway, eyes wide.

"Pisses me off, you know? We got cures for fucking alien plagues, we can grow a guy's hand back on, but they don't have some pill or injection or anything that can make a guy smarter. You'd think they'd figure that shit out."

"Greg...you realize that I know you well enough now to call bullshit on that. You're not stupid."

"Compared to Pasha?"

"Compared to Pasha everyone on this ship, except maybe Spock – and that's a maybe – is an idiot. If Pasha wanted to be with someone as smart as him he'd have a roomful of about twenty hundred-year-old Vulcans and misanthopic scientists to choose from."

"He can't fucking talk to me. That's not right, Sulu. If he was with you he'd talk to you. You or Spock or Kirk or anyone else in that little pack of yours that's so close. Don't fucking patronize me, either – I'm _not_ smart like you guys. I'm not funny or clever or any of that other shit. My whole fucking life I've been good at one thing. I'm a fucking security guard."

"I don't think that's--"

"Fuck off, Sulu. I'm not fucking asking your opinion. I'm telling you. I been living with me for almost thirty fucking years now, I know what I am. I'm not smart, but smart isn't everything. I'm good at my job. I'm good at that class I teach, and I'm good at keeping people safe. It's the one fucking thing I've got that I'm good at."

He paused, his anger bleeding into something thinner. "It's all I can give him. He can't even fucking _talk_ to me, but I can look out for him better than anyone on this ship. And now he doesn't want that, and you tell me I should turn it off, and..."

Pavel held his breath, his eyes shutting as he listened to Greg's voice waver.

"And if I was just a little fucking smarter, I _could_ turn it off. I could give him something else. But I'm not, so...so maybe you're right and this was all for the best. Maybe he don't belong with someone like me. I've just been lucky because he didn't notice this whole time. Not until now. And...fuck it, Sulu, I just fucking wish..."

"What?" Hikaru asked quietly.

"It's just I love him, you know, and why isn't that enough? Why can't I just be a little...damn it. I just wish I was a little fucking smarter."

Pavel couldn't stand that.

He realized it like a punch to the brain – he really couldn't handle Greg this way, sad and self-conscious and thinking things that weren't true. Greg being so hard on himself. Greg feeling alone and stupid.

Greg without Pavel there.

He thought he was ready for that, but apparently he couldn't stand it for more than a few minutes.

Pavel moved without thinking, taking the one step that was all he needed to bring Greg and Hikaru into sight. He looked out at Greg's bent head and slumped shoulders, and Hikaru's quiet, sympathetic observation.

"I don't."

Hikaru glanced over, unsurprised if a little relieved to see him there.

Greg's head snapped up, his eyes finding Pavel and freezing there in surprise.

Pavel kept moving, forgetting Hikaru after that first glance.

It was a shock. An unhappy shock to think he had been hurting Greg that way. To think that if Greg made him worry about being helpless or weak, he made Greg worry about being stupid or worthless. But he didn't think that about Greg, not for a second in the entire time he had known him.

Greg didn't think that about Pavel. He cared so little about Pavel's youth that Hikaru's one mention of his age was dismissed without mention.

Pavel approached the couch, his gaze locked on Greg's surprised, unhappy face. And God, how long had it been since he last looked Greg in the face? He looked like he was barely sleeping, hardly eating. Circles under his eyes, misery painted like makeup on his face.

Pavel swallowed and moved in to him, his heart aching for all the time they had missed. For the bad things Pavel had thought that weren't even close to the truth.

He held out his hand, but Greg looked at him with unhappy hesitation and he let his arm drop. "I don't wish you were smarter, Greg. I swear to you I don't. If you were smarter or dumber or smaller or bigger, or different at all, you wouldn't be you anymore."

"Sulu's right," Greg answered, his voice hoarse. "You deserve..."

"I deserve," Pavel answered firmly, "to be miserable for what I've done. I would deserve it if you hated me." He glanced at Hikaru, gratitude in his eyes. "I deserved everything you said to me."

Hikaru grinned but shot to his feet. "Me? I didn't say anything. I'm not even here right now. Later, guys." And without waiting for any kind of answer, he was at the door and out into the corridor in a flash.

Pavel didn't deserve a friend like him.

He looked down at Greg as the door shut after Hikaru. "I hurt you," he said.

Greg shook his head, but looked away from him. "I hurt you, too. I didn't even know...none of that, what you said in the sickbay. I didn't know any of that was going on."

"I should have said something. But...I thought it meant something that it didn't, and I never asked you, and if you never forgive me for that I won't be surprised."

"Forgive you?" Greg frowned, but studied him. There was doubt in his eyes, like he wasn't sure where Pavel was going with this or why he was even there. "I just...I don't..."

Pavel swallowed. "I miss you," he said, the most honest thing he had said in weeks.

Greg seemed to wilt a little where he sat. "I miss you too," he said to the floor. "Don't know what to do with myself when you're not..." He drew in a breath and looked up, shoulders squaring like he was about to go into battle. "Pasha."

"I miss you and I love you and I want to come back." Pavel spoke fast – he wanted to be the one to put the words out there, because he was the one who caused this whole mess.

"But..." Greg's breath hitched. He shook his head, miserable. "I can't stop it, Pasha. I know you hate it, me looking out for you. But I've done it for two years now and I can't just turn that off. But that hurts you, and I can't hurt you."

Pavel hesitated. He moved around Greg's legs to sit beside him on the couch.

"Starfleet...this project Hikaru mentioned. I worked very hard on it, but Starfleet refused to let me be involved. Their response said that my proposed role in the project was insulting. I am too young, too immature, too inexperienced. They feared that New Vulcan would take my presence as offensive."

Greg's brow furrowed. "But. Wait, they said that? That's..." He blinked, frowning at Pavel as his surprise overpowered his misery. "That's so fucking stupid. There wouldn't even be a New Vulcan if it wasn't for you. Everybody here knows that."

Pavel didn't allow himself the luxury of enjoying Greg's honest shock. "I am the youngest officer in the fleet, Greg. Of course they think that--"

"What the hell does that have to do with anything? They let you into the Academy and let you on this ship, so they already fucking well said you weren't too young. They can't change their minds now."

"It's not such an easy concern to dismiss, though. My age is--"

"Who _gives_ a shit?" Greg asked, scowling. "Everybody that knows you knows there isn't a fucking thing you can't do."

Pavel reached out, unable to stop himself. He lay his hand on Greg's arm, meaning to calm him down but there was no denying the jolt of memory, of want and need and familiarity and comfort that went through his own body at the touch.

He spoke through a thickening throat. "You never thought I was too young, did you?"

Greg shook his head, looking baffled by the whole thing. "That's what I just said. There's nothing you can't do, so if Starfleet really wants you to sit on your fucking hands until you're some proper fucking age, they're even bigger idiots than me."

Pavel swallowed and nodded, amazed all over again at how badly he had read his argument with Greg. How horribly he had confused Starfleet's beliefs and pushed them onto Greg.

There was a beat, and Greg twisted to look at him suddenly. His eyes were wide. "Wait a minute. You said...in the sickbay. Something about me treating you like my kid or something. Is that what...you thought just 'cause Starfleet said that..." He gaped at Pavel. "You think I think that too? About your age?"

"I did." It was a hard confession, because Pavel wasn't often wrong and this entire situation had kept him oversensitive from the start. "And that's what hurt me."

"But...that's bullshit!" Greg stared at him. "That's not even..."

Pavel wasn't sure if he wanted to smile or cry. "I thought you saw me as weak, as young and helpless. I thought..."

"Because of what I said about that planet," Greg finished, slow. "Fuck, Pasha. You gotta know me better than that, right? Maybe the way I said it...maybe it came out wrong or something, but..."

"I know." Pavel settled for smiling as his eyes clouded. "I know now. I was angry, I made a mistake, and I took my anger out on you. I'm sorry."

"Huh." Greg regarded him, sinking back into the couch with a furrowed brow. "Well, that's fucking funny, isn't it?"

"What?"

"That someone like me can say the right thing now and then, and someone like you can get something completely fucking ass-backwards."

Pavel hesitated – now he was the one who felt like he was on unsteady ground, unsure where Greg was going or what he intended.

"Greg..." He slipped his hand up Greg's arm, his throat dry. "I'm sorry. Really. I miss you and I can't do this anymore. Please...let me come back?"

Greg chuckled, but when he looked at Pavel there was this warm kind of amazement in his eyes. "Come on, have you _met_ me, and you gotta ask me that?"

Pavel held his breath, trying not to hope too much too soon. "Is that a yes?"

Greg grinned, but suddenly pulled away from Pavel's hand and stood up. "Hang on..." He went around to the side of the couch. Reaching into that box Pavel had seen when he first came in, he pulled out that solitary book and took it over to the messy bookshelf crammed with the rest of Pavel's tests and padds.

He turned back to Pavel with a wide, crooked grin. "There. All unpacked."

Pavel wasn't sure how it happened – some physics law he had yet to master – but suddenly in the blink of an eye he was across the room, hurling himself with some force into Greg's body.

And suddenly Greg's arms were around him, solid and warm and strong, comforting in that silent way that Greg had always been comforting. Suddenly Greg's heart was beating right under Pavel's ear, and his smell – like the detergent he used on his often-washed gym clothes and soap from the showers down in security – filled Pavel's nose.

Pavel wanted to cry, it felt so good. He had taken it for granted, this secure feeling of belonging right where he was. He had stopped appreciating Greg, maybe, stopped listing all the ways having Greg around helped him.

He drew in a shuddering breath, arms tight around Greg's waist just in case Greg ever thought about pulling away ever again.

"God," he said, murmured into Greg's shirt. Almost talking to himself, almost talking to Greg. "I want to be strong on my own, but I need you so much."

Greg just held him tighter. "Doesn't have to be a bad thing, does it?" he asked, his voice a bass rumble. "Like maybe I'm not...not a crutch or something. Just...I dunno. A partner."

Pavel smiled, watery and uneven. He could tell from Greg's sheepish voice that he was blushing as he said that, but he couldn't force himself to pull away enough to look.

"It doesn't sound so bad if you say it that way," he said, his voice tight. "I love you, Greg. I don't think I even knew how much before the last couple of weeks."

"Love you," Greg said into his hair. He pressed a gentle kiss on Pavel's forehead. "I should've fought you harder when you left. I should've..."

"No." Pavel pulled back then, just relaxed enough for a few inches distance. He looked up at Greg's face, his heart twisting when he saw the wetness gathering in his eyes. "No should have's, no sorry's. We just have to do better now. We have to say something if we're feeling hurt. And I'll bore you with talk about physics and research projects, and you'll remind me that when you worry about me it's just because you love me, not because you think I need it."

Greg grinned. "And maybe you'll tell me the name of whichever dumbass in Starfleet called you a kid, and you won't get too mad when I kick his ass all over the place."

"Maybe not," Pavel laughed. But he didn't wince to think about that message from the Science Academy. He didn't flinch to think about those comments. He just heard Greg's instant, honest shock. His outraged 'who _gives_ a shit'.

He thought suddenly, looking up into Greg's grin, that maybe he would take Spock up on his offer. Maybe he would let New Vulcan tell Starfleet how entirely illogical their refusal was. There was no shame in that if it was the truth, was there?

Greg reached out suddenly, threading his fingers through Pavel's curls and hauling him in close. He didn't kiss him, just tilted his head until their mouths were centimeters apart.

"Does it make me a jerk that I just got you back here and all I can think about is that I really want to fuck you?"

Pavel laughed, and it melted into a groan when Greg pulled him in harder and sealed their mouths together, and if that did make Greg a jerk, than they would just have to be jerks together.

And long minutes later, when Pavel was on his stomach in their bed gasping 'missed you' like the words were necessary to breathe, and Greg was buried inside of him murmuring 'mine' in a way that made Pavel's body tighten and throb, and they were moving like they had never been apart for a single moment, Pavel felt himself crying into the pillow.

He wasn't strong all on his own. He was lonely and sad and guilty.

He was strong with Greg. He took Greg into him and was made better for it. And God, even if there was something young or weak about that, he wouldn't give it up again without a fight.

There were better things than independence.

* * *

A shadow appeared over their table and Pavel looked up, and up, and beamed when he saw Greg, still in his uniform.

But Greg wasn't smiling back. He looked stern, angry. He held up his wrist and pointed at it, and glared. Right at Hikaru.

"Oh, shit!" Hikaru jumped up from his seat. "Sorry! I spaced completely. Duty, you know? We were going over course charts for the next--"

"We were talking about girls," Pavel chirped cheerfully, already anticipating the sweaty, glowing Greg he'd have all to himself in a couple of hours. "Hikaru insists there's something great about them."

Greg flashed Pavel a quick grin before glowering back at Hikaru. "Some sense of honor, Sulu. Late for practice so you can gossip like you're a teenager at a sleepover or some shit."

Hikaru rolled his eyes, but waved goodbye to Pavel and started for the door. "I would have thought getting you laid again would put you in a better mood."

Greg let him go ahead. "You gonna be there when I'm done?"

Pavel nodded enthusiastically, jumping out of his seat long enough to grab Greg's shirt and haul him down. "Ready and waiting for you," he promised against Greg's mouth.

Greg sealed the promise with a quick but deep kiss.

"Cupcake! Way to make your captain proud!"

They broke apart and Pavel rolled his eyes as Kirk moved in behind Greg.

Greg looked over his shoulder at Kirk. He grinned. "Shit, captain, who's a guy got to blow to get some privacy around here?"

Pavel gaped, but Kirk cackled like it was some joke between them, slapping Greg's arm as he passed. "Looks like you've got the 'who' part down. But the privacy needs work."

Greg squeezed Pavel's arm and kissed him – quick and light – before returning Kirk's smack and taking off after Hikaru.

"Jesus." Kirk grabbed his shoulder, scowling after Greg. "I've got to remember that guy fucking hurts when he hits."

Pavel flashed him as innocent a smile as he could manage. "You're still on your feet, sir. Don't be such a girl."

Kirk sighed, passing Pavel with a quick ruffle of curls that Pavel decided firmly didn't bother him. "Mutiny. That's what it is, good old fashioned mutiny."

"If it is I'm sure you deserve it," Doctor McCoy was good enough to answer from a nearby table.

Pavel sat back down as the captain went to McCoy to pout, and for the rest of his meal he lost himself in musing exactly what Greg's face would look like if Pavel met him at the door naked and ready for him. Or in bed, on top the sheets. Naked and ready.

Maybe on the couch, studying his course routes. Naked. And ready.

Luckily the problem he was obsessing over was, for the first time in weeks, just the kind of dilemma a person really wanted to have.


	7. Chapter 7

Family

Part One

* * *

"What would you think..." Pavel asked slowly, turning his head one way and then the other, regarding his reflection with a solemn, critical gaze. "...if I asked the barber to cut off my curls and tried to grow my hair straight?"

Greg's laugh registered under the higher whine of the sonic shower. "I think there'd be a shipwide revolt and the poor guy would get jumped in revenge."

Pavel glanced at the closed shower door. "I refuse to believe that anyone on this ship has any emotion vested in whether or not my hair curls."

"Okay, genius. Whatever."

"But what would _you _think?"

"Depends." The shower shut off, and Greg's broad shadow moved behind the frosted door. "Why are you thinking about it?"

"I think it makes me look young." Pavel regarded himself again.

The door opened and Greg's face appeared around the doorway, finding Pavel and eying him dubiously. "Hate to break it to you, Pasha, but..."

"I _am_ young. I know." He sighed, but couldn't keep his eyes on his own reflection as Greg came through the shower door and approached behind him, naked and clean and grinning.

"I don't think anything you do to your hair's gonna change that," Greg agreed.

"People keep ruffling it," Pavel complained softly, a sincere gripe but probably unconvincing at that moment, when Greg stepped up behind him and slipped his arms through Pavel's and dropped his chin on Pavel's hair, studying his reflection.

"Aww, like who? Anyone I can kill for ya?"

It was hard to seem put out by anything with all that solid warmth behind him, against him. Pavel smiled despite himself.

"My hero. But no. Kirk is the worst of the group, and I don't want to have to visit you in prison. Though I would, of course." He leaned into Greg's chest, watching him through the glass.

Greg grinned, that little shy, pleased grin Pavel adored being the cause of. "And I'd love you if you shaved your head bald and dyed it purple. So that's what _I _think."

Pavel giggled at himself in the glass, trying to picture it for a moment.

"But here's what else I think," Greg went on, slipping his hand up to comb through those offending curls. "I think Kirk ruffles your hair like he thinks you're a kid, but he also turns to you over and over again when shit goes down and says Chekov, save the ship, and that means he doesn't see you like a kid at all. Means he trusts you with his ship and everybody on it." He smiled at Pavel through the mirror. "So maybe you could give him a little hair-ruffling now and then. Like a present."

Pavel sighed, trying to sound put out by the whole thing, but he couldn't make his smile fade enough to really seem genuine.

"Now I got a question for you," Greg said, slipping his hand down under Pavel's shirt and laying his shower-warm palm flat against his stomach.

Pavel shivered. "Mmm?"

"Why the fuck do you always get dressed so fast?"

Pavel grinned, flushing. He leaned back against Greg's chest, laying his hand over his shirt to encourage Greg's hand. "I don't want to seem easy," he said through a laugh that was mostly breath.

Greg raised his eyebrows at Pavel through the mirror. "You calling me a slut?"

The idea made Pavel laugh harder, and after a moment Greg's grin returned. He buried it, though, leaning his head down and burying his mouth against Pavel's throat and shoulder.

Pavel's laugh faded. He watched the reflection for a moment, watched Greg's mouth against his throat, watched his own face color pink.

"We have to work," he protested, without the slightest bit of conviction.

He couldn't really argue this. There was something so unbelievably nice about it. Something about even standing there in the bathroom getting ready for a shift while Greg showered right behind him.

Maybe the couple of weeks they'd been fighting were still too close in his memory, but Pavel found himself appreciating the value of moments like that.

Because it meant he wasn't alone. It meant that even something like waking up, showering, dressing, was a shared experience. It meant that awkward, alienated genius Pavel Chekov was so comfortable with another person that the only strange thing would have been getting ready _without_ Greg moving around behind him.

He let his head fall back, curling one hand around the edge of the counter. "Grischa..."

Greg murmured against his throat, a few unintelligible words. Then he pulled back enough to meet Pavel's eyes through the glass.

"See, you say you want me to stop. But then you call me that name, which you know really really makes me want to never fucking stop. Ever."

Pavel met that glittering gaze, and leaned back against him silently. They had time.

The hand on Pavel's stomach slipped down, fingers slipping under the waistband of his uniform slacks and just trailing there.

Pavel made an encouraging noise, his skin wakening under Greg's touch. His cock was already stirring, already showing its approval of Pavel's irresponsible choices.

Greg slipped his other hand around Pavel's waist, unfastening his uniform pants, pushing them down just enough. His hand slipped inside, finding his stirring erection and grasping with a firm fist.

"Mmm." Pavel leaned his head back against Greg's shoulder, eyes fluttering closed as warmth stole over him. "We have to hurry."

Greg hummed. "Something tells me your job'd be safe if you were late once," he murmured into Pavel's skin as he nuzzled his throat. His grip stayed firm and unmoving around Pavel's erection.

Pavel laughed breathlessly. "Maybe, but if I don't have time to...mmm, to wash up, and the captain realizes what we were up to..."

Greg nipped at his throat, chuckling. "Think you gave away that secret a while back, Pasha."

Pavel wriggled against him, hungry for movement, for friction. "But I don't want to give him ammunition for more horrible innuendo."

"Okay, tell you what..." Greg spoke against his skin between nips of his teeth. "You wanna be on time? Better come fast."

Pavel found himself being turned. His back pressed against the edge of the counter top he'd been standing over, and suddenly Greg was on his knees on the floor right in front of him.

And just as suddenly Pavel's erection was pulled from his pants and Greg was right there to greet it.

Pavel made a wild sound, like an 'oh' of surprise that got stuck in his throat and came out a strangled mess. His head fell back, hands clinging to the sides of the counter top as Greg took him into his mouth.

Greg's mouth was hot, his lips pulled tight around Pavel's cock. His hands came up, broad and solid around Pavel's hips to hold him right where he was.

Pleasure was a hot gush of blood in his veins, sharp and unstoppable. Pavel's legs sagged but Greg held him, never slowing his fierce, enthusiastic suction.

The first few times they had done this had been nervous experiments – Greg was Pavel's first time with anyone, and Pavel was the first male Greg was with in any real way (Pavel refused to acknowledge whatever nameless cretin had gotten his hands on Greg first). Pavel had feared having to break through some sort of macho taboo Greg might have had about having another man's cock in his mouth.

But Greg had surprised him, as he so often did. He had been unsure at first, but never less than enthusiastic to learn. He really seemed to love giving Pavel so much pleasure, didn't seem to think there was a single negative about being on his knees in front of his Pasha.

And God, just that knowledge, just knowing that Greg cared about absolutely nothing so much as pleasing him, made Pavel feel like a king. A man.

Greg's mouth worked him, hard and fast, until Pavel was nearly hitting the mirror with every arch of his hips. Pavel heard himself making sounds, hoarse, half-formed growls and pleas.

He would spend his entire shift wanting to feel Greg inside of him. He would blush too readily with Hikaru, smile too broadly, get lost in his own thoughts. It really was an awful idea, doing this before a shift.

He reached down, grasping Greg's shoulder and squeezing.

Greg growled in protest, slipping off Pavel's cock but slowly, his tongue flickering one last goodbye against the tip.

Pavel shuddered, fighting for breath. His cock ached, full and hard and pointing directly at Greg as if his body itself was protesting his decision.

They did have a good hour almost before they actually had to be at their stations.

Pavel slipped away from the counter, sinking to his knees in front of Greg. "No fair you get to do all the touching," he said, his accent thick in his throat.

Greg's gaze was hot, intent, and he leaned in without a word and drove their mouths together.

Pavel could taste hints of himself on Greg's mouth. It made his body ache that much more, made his lips part wantonly and his tongue twine with Greg's in clumsy eagerness.

Greg's arm circled his back and pulled him closer until their erections slipped against each other. Their mouths broke apart and they groaned, different registers but same meaning.

Pavel reached blindly between them, finding Greg's cock and wrapping his fingers around the girth of it. Greg took the hint fast and wrapped his own hand around Pavel's.

They kissed, messy and clumsy, as they stroked each other. Pavel fought to hold himself back, to catch Greg up to him so they could come together. But his body was tired of listening to him, and in just a few frantic minutes he was seizing, his back arching into Greg's touch as he pulsed into his hand. His own fingers clenched around Greg, trying not to let him go.

Before he could relax from the shaking pleasure Greg was growling against his mouth and pumping into his hand until he added to the messy wetness between them.

Pavel worked him gently through his orgasm, and their mouths met again before they could catch their breath.

"Now I have to change," Pavel murmured finally against Greg's mouth.

Greg laughed, the engine-revving rumble his voice fell into after he came. "Gotta take another shower," he put in, his arm curling around Pavel's back and holding him close. "Wanna join me?"

Pavel pulled away to look at him, trying to be solemn. "Do you promise to behave yourself?"

Greg's eyes glittered, warm and brown. "Me? You started it."

"I did not!" Pavel laughed into Greg's chest, not quite ready to pull away and stand up yet. He slipped his hand down Greg's chest, the familiar broad planes and hard angles. He loved touching him, loved this firm, strong body against him, under his hands. "You're the one accosting me about wearing _clothes_."

"Yeah, but you gotta see things my way," Greg reasoned, stroking Pavel's hair with his clean hand. "I've gotta deal with you standing there being fucking gorgeous, and talking about your hair even though I know you'd never cut it, and being all...you. And everything." He pressed a kiss against Pavel's hair. "Takes a stronger man than me to resist you, Pasha."

"I doubt there is a stronger man than you," Pavel replied before he could even think. The words made him blush, and he wondered if Greg could feel the heat against his chest.

"Come on," Greg said a moment later, and when Pavel lifted his eyes he saw the pink coating his cheeks.

They stood up clumsily on unsteady legs, and traded equally clumsy kisses as Pavel stripped his uniform off.

* * *

To Pavel's disappointment, Greg behaved himself in the shower. And when Pavel stood at the mirror once again, battling his curls into some dignified form of submission, Greg simply left him to the bathroom and went to dress in the bedroom.

"The one time he listens to me," Pavel grumbled to himself, though he couldn't erase his smile as he looked as his flushing, happy reflection. He supposed there were only so many times in one morning a man could hope to be jumped by his lover.

He heard the chime of the door distantly, and sighed to himself to think of the day intruding finally. He checked the seams of his uniform, and felt a little less like a boy playing dress-up than normal as he left the bathroom behind.

He stopped in the doorway to the bedroom.

The captain and McCoy were both there, standing in the front room with Greg. Greg held a padd like he'd been reading something, and he looked...

Pavel was at his side in a flash, instantly scared by the paleness of Greg's face. "What? What's happened?"

Neither of the visitors spoke, but Greg held the padd out without hesitation. "Marcus. My brother," he got out, his voice strangely choked.

Pavel took the padd and only glanced long enough to see the words '_regret to inform you_', and his focus was instantly back on Greg. "Oh. Grischa..."

Greg looked away from him, turning to Kirk and McCoy and squaring his shoulders.

"I'm sorry, Harris." Kirk seemed sincerely regretful. "You let me know when you can be ready. I'm already getting your transport arranged."

"Meantime," McCoy put in, "my office door is always open if you need to talk to someone." His eyes flickered to Pavel. "Officially, I mean. Not easy losing family when you're stuck on a starship, and I've helped work a couple of guys through it before."

Pavel slipped his arm around Greg's waist, his support more quiet but at least as sincere.

Greg blinked after a moment, shaking his head like he was coming out of a fog. "Transport?" He looked at Kirk.

Kirk nodded. "To earth. There are..." He faltered, glancing at McCoy. "Er, there are details included in that message, but it looks like the funeral is still a few days off, and I think we can get you there in time."

"No."

Pavel frowned up at Greg.

Greg hesitated, looking at the padd Pavel still held. "No, sir. Thank you, but...I'm not about to drop everything here. I got a job to do."

Kirk blinked. "I appreciate your devotion to duty, Greg, but Starfleet policy in these cases is to-"

"Thank you, Captain. Doctor." Greg stood straighter suddenly, and though he didn't move to brush Pavel off something about his bearing made Pavel slip his arm free and give him some space.

"I don't need transport, sir. I've got a job to do and I'd rather do it. And since my shift starts in like five minutes..."

He moved between the captain and the doctor and headed out the door without a look back, even at Pavel.

"Huh." McCoy spoke as the three of them that were left behind regarded the closed door. "That either went well or really badly."

Kirk frowned back at him. "I'm leaning towards 'badly'. You think it's really his job he's worried about?"

Pavel found their eyes going to him, and he looked down at the padd uncertainly.

He knew that Greg's relationship with his family on earth was strained at best. Greg didn't speak about it often, and hadn't mentioned them at all since their school days. It was as if the further he got from his childhood the less he wanted to bring it with him.

The impression Pavel got was that they were closed-minded and cruel, at least to Greg. But Greg had only ever spoken of his father specifically, when he explained to Pavel why he didn't return home during holidays like most other students.

Pavel didn't tell any of this to Kirk or McCoy, of course, but after they left he put the padd with the message from Earth on the table in the living room, and made a promise to himself to talk about it with Greg that night.

* * *

Kirk spent a good hour of the alpha shift in the boardroom off the bridge, talking with someone from Starfleet headquarters. But he didn't say a word to Pavel, or to anyone, about what it was about. Just came out of the meeting with a big, self-satisfied Kirk smile on his face, and got on the comm the moment he was back at his chair.

"Attention, crew of the Enterprise. This is your captain." He flashed a grin around the bridge (he usually liked to throw a look at Uhura whenever he spoke his own title, though Pavel wasn't sure why). "Got some good news for you. Our shore leave scheduled for somewhere in the Trollian Nebula in three weeks time has been canceled."

Pavel exchanged curious glances with Hikaru, who had the half-smile on his face he usually directed at Kirk. Hikaru found the captain endlessly amusing.

Kirk sat back in his chair, drawing out the announcement. "Seems we've been working extra-hard lately, and Starfleet has seen it in their hearts to reschedule our next couple of lower-priority assignments. I'm about to request the wonder twins at the helm here to change our course, and we are headed home for one solid week's leave. We should only be a day or two from earth, get with your division heads to work out details. Kirk out."

Kirk punched the comm closed and sighed happily. "I love my job."

Pavel drew in a breath, grin rising to his face unbidden. "Home?" he murmured over at Hikaru.

Hikaru beamed at him. "For that I'll even let the 'wonder twins' crack slide."

"Noble of you, Sulu. How fast can you two get us there?"

Pavel grinned and spun in his chair to start working out the course.

It wasn't until most of alpha shift had filtered through the lift as their replacements took over that Pavel grew curious about something and managed to hang back and ask Kirk in relative privacy.

"Sir, this leave, going to earth...it's not because of Greg, is it?"

Kirk just shrugged, clapping Pavel on the shoulder as they headed for the lift. "He gave me a solid moral reason to make the request. But trust me, kid, the ninety percent of the crew who come from earth need a few days on home turf almost as much as Cupcake does."

* * *

But Greg didn't think he needed it at all, it turned out.

"The fuck did he even offer me transport for if he was planning this? Why the fuck did he even let me think I had a choice?"

"Greg..." Pavel stopped, fairly sure that suggesting the leave request came after the transport offer would only be a mistake. "It's not a bad thing, is it?"

"The hell it's not."

"It isn't!" Pavel spoke intently, since watching Greg in his focused, annoyed pace was getting worrying. "You won't have to go alone, at least."

Greg's pacing stopped then. He spun to face Pavel, something flashing in his eyes. Something like panic.

"You're not coming." It wasn't a question.

Pavel hesitated, regarding him now that he was still. "I thought it would be easier for you if someone were with you."

"Fuck that. _Fuck_ that." Greg pushed into motion again. "You go to fucking Russia or wherever, I don't even want you in the same fucking country."

Pavel sat down, slowly, on the small couch. "Perhaps you'll tell me why I shouldn't be hurt by that."

"Pasha." Greg growled, but he glanced at Pavel and his steps slowed. Whatever he saw in Pavel's face made him swallow. He hesitated, but moved to the couch and sat heavily beside Pavel.

"It's not you."

Pavel studied him, wanting to curl into him and force Greg's arms around him until that tight line of his spine relaxed, and his face grew less hard.

He spoke hesitantly in the pause. "I know you don't get along with your family, Greg."

Greg snorted. He leaned in and picked up the padd Kirk had brought to the room that morning. He didn't call the screen up, just looked at it, broad fingers toying with it.

"There's not a single thing in my life they haven't fucked up." He spoke flatly, but Pavel heard the emotion under the mask. "Even...even Starfleet. They ruined that before I put the fucking uniform on. Everything about me's got their stink all over it, Pasha." He drew in a breath. "Everything except you. I mean, I got some shit for being queer, but...but they don't know you. They can't ruin you."

Pavel frowned, studying Greg's profile. "You wouldn't have ever taken me to..."

"No!" The answer was sharp, like Greg was shocked, and worried that Pavel had even thought such a thing. "Jesus, Pasha, I never wanted to go back there even by myself. I'm not...they're not my fucking family anymore. They made that clear years ago."

"But you will go to the funeral."

"Yeah." Greg scowled. "I wouldn't've left the ship, but now the fucking ship's dropping me off. It's not right to not go if I'm there. But..." He scoffed, and it sounded shaky. "I'm not staying for seven fucking days."

"Do you..." Pavel frowned.

Greg stared ahead of him as if he didn't even hear.

It was a touchy subject for Pavel, and he considered that before he spoke. He had to reason it out, to tell himself it didn't mean to Greg what it meant to him. That Greg didn't realize what it meant that he would never be taking Pavel to meet his family.

Greg didn't regard family as Pavel did. Greg had no way of knowing how deep Pavel's offer to go with Greg sprang from, and no way of knowing how badly his absolute refusal could have hurt.

He had no idea how important Pavel's next words were. Pavel just had to remember that, and not overreact to his answer.

"You could spend some time with me. With my family."

Greg looked at him then, eyes focusing like he'd been somewhere inside his own head. "What?"

Pavel reached out for that padd Greg held. He had gone through it after shift, briefly, assuming that Greg wouldn't mind since he had handed it over to Pavel that morning.

Greg's brother wasn't buried yet because there was some sort of investigation. Some man was in trouble for his death. The details were sketchy, but Pavel thought it seemed like a pretty mutual fight that had just gone one step too far.

Greg hadn't seemed surprised by any of it when he read it earlier.

He fidgeted with the padd to give him something to look at. "After the funeral. You don't want to stay with them, and...there would be nothing to do on the ship, or...I suppose you could stay in San Francisco and...and just relax. But. If you wanted. I want to see my papa and my home, and you could join me there. If you wanted."

"Join you? And...meet your dad?"

Pavel nodded at the padd.

Greg was quiet for a moment. "You don't...uh. You don't think he'll hate me?"

"Hate you?" Pavel blinked over, and he relaxed at the surprise in Greg's face. Maybe Greg did realize, to a point, how important this offer was. Even if he didn't regard his family the same way.

Greg shrugged. "Because I'm a guy, and I'm not some scientist, or...Russian, or anything."

Pavel braved a small smile. "It won't be a surprise to him," he said. "He knows almost as much about you as I do. Disregarding certain areas of information, of course."

Greg blushed, his misery softening. "You told your dad about me?"

"Once a week for a couple of years now," Pavel confirmed. "You know how often I write home."

"Yeah, but...about me?"

"About everything." Pavel slipped closer on the couch cushion, reaching for Greg's arm. "You've been the most important piece of news most weeks since we met."

Greg smiled, soft and shy. "And he doesn't hate me?"

"He loves you because I do," Pavel answered quietly.

He had longed since that morning, since seeing that stricken, pale look on Greg's face, to comfort him. He was done waiting until it felt needed. He all but crawled into Greg's side, curling up against his chest and stroking his fingers along his shift shirt.

"You should come," he said, and Greg's arms folding around him made him braver. "You will. When you've resolved things at home, I'll come meet you somewhere and bring you home. You can meet my papa and his parents, and my mother's sisters. My entire village. You can see Russia, my part of it. There's no other place in the universe like it."

Greg buried his face in Pavel's hair, shuddering under him as he held on to him tightly. "Sounds like a plan. Just don't let me fuck up too bad."

Pavel pressed a kiss against his chest, over his shirt. A silly little gesture, maybe, but it felt right. "Don't insult vodka. Or me. Papa will love you otherwise."

Greg chuckled, watery. "Can probably remember that much." The laugh twisted into something else, something broken. "God, Pasha, I don't want to...fucking Marcus. Fucking _idiot_."

Pavel had wanted to be there to comfort Greg, but it made his chest hurt to hear the cracks in his voice, to feel him shudder with tightly repressed, choking breaths. He didn't know what had Greg so close to tears – thinking of his brother, or thinking of having to see his remaining family.

Either way, Pavel leaned up and kissed his jaw and murmured that he was right there, that Greg wasn't alone. That even if Greg had to face them on his own, he wasn't alone for a second, and he had to remember that.

Greg didn't answer, didn't let himself make a sound. But Pavel held him until his shuddering stopped, and held him again under the covers that night, and let him go so reluctantly in the morning that he imagined his point was made.


	8. Chapter 8

Family

Part Two

* * *

It wasn't that he was all that shocked that Marcus's stupid ass got killed in a bar fight. Hell, it was practically fate that at least one or two of the Harris kids would find death in the sharp end of a broken bottle of Bud.

But. Fuck.

Maybe he should have been more upset. Maybe he should have cried for Marcus or something, but all he could think about was the last time he saw him. Last time he saw any of his brothers.

Jesus, he didn't want to go back there.

But dead was dead, and even if he was a prick Marcus had the same blood as Greg. Everybody talked about family like it was this huge, deep thing that a person had to honor. Pasha talked like that, and Pasha was always right about everything.

Maybe Greg owed them something, since they were family. So...so okay. He'd go, he'd hug his parents if they were sober enough to stay on their feet, he'd fight off whatever bullshit his brothers tried to pull, and he'd stick around long enough to see Marcus's dumb ass put into the ground.

Maybe this could be him letting go of his last obligations towards the family he left behind. Maybe if he said this last goodbye he could forget about them for good.

He didn't know if that made him a bad person or not, even thinking about them like that. He just knew he couldn't talk to Pasha about feeling that way, because Pasha and his innocence and his love for his own dad might just see that as a deal-breaker.

As plans went, his was a shitty one – spend as little time as possible back in South Dakota, then go to Russia to meet Pasha's dad and pretend like he wasn't a heartless shit who hated his own family, and then a whole lifetime of keeping his stupid selfish thoughts to himself so Pasha never learned to hate him.

Shitty, but at least it was a plan. It was something.

Of course Greg was having this whole rotten string of fucking luck, so even his shitty little plan never stood a chance.

Because the Enterprise reached Earth ahead of schedule.

* * *

"You sure this is gonna be okay?"

Pasha flashed him a smile, which was nice of him since it was the tenth time Greg had asked that the whole ten minutes they'd been on the shuttle from the ship, and even Greg was losing patience with his own dumb ass.

"It is fine," Pasha said, speaking softly though he didn't so much as look at any of the crewmen sitting around them on the shuttle. "I sent papa a message so he'll know to expect you. You can spend a few hours with me, and that way you can find your way back to me when the funeral is done. If you transport home from Ichevsk around...midnight, I think...it should be close to the time the funeral will start."

He leaned in, slipping his hand through Greg's nervously fidgeting fingers for a quick squeeze. "You only have to be there as long as you want to, and then you'll come home to me. That doesn't sound so bad, does it?"

Greg shook his head, because it didn't sound bad at all. But he couldn't say that, because when he actually thought about it it did sound bad. Because he was going home, and that was the one part of the whole fucking scenario that he couldn't change.

There was a transport station in San Francisco, near the docking ports for the shuttles. Convenient and pretty much necessary for a ship full of people all coming in at once and wanting instantly to be at a thousand different destinations all over the planet.

Greg stood in line with Pasha, trying not to fidget or ask Pasha if he was sure this was gonna be okay for the hundredth time.

He stayed quiet altogether, looking around at the officers around them. All grinning, chatting too loudly. All excited to get to where they were going.

And Pasha. Shit. He always talked about his dad with this sort of glow on his face but the last day or so it was even worse. He talked with extra big grins now, with soft eyes. Like he could already see his dad right there, just knowing he'd see him so soon.

It was nice - Greg sure as hell wasn't about to say otherwise. He figured he liked Pasha's dad already just for putting that look on Pasha's face.

But it was _weird_. There was no getting around it, the whole thing was fucking weird. To Greg, anyway. Sure didn't seem weird to anyone else standing there talking about where they were going and who they'd see. Everyone so damned glad to go running back home.

It was almost sad, watching them. If Greg was the kind of guy who spent a lot of time feeling sorry for himself, this kind of shit would really get him going. How different was home supposed to be, to make those soldiers look that giddy?

He stayed quiet, though, exchanging a few nods with some of the crew he knew by sight. He grinned and Pasha laughed at the beeping of a loud, old-school automobile that came thundering by with Hikaru Sulu waving through the front window like he was half-drunk already. A couple of girls who looked just like him were in the car with him, and Greg figured they were sisters.

Actually, he knew they were. Even knew their names – Tomiko and...shit. Something weird for Sulu's family. Nancy or something.

Sulu was a friend. There hadn't been, like, one moment when that happened, but Greg knew his sisters' names (mostly) so he figured that made him a legit friend. Hell, the idea of that didn't even seem weird anymore.

By the time they got to the front of the line, Pasha was practically twitching. He kept shifting his duffel from shoulder to shoulder, tapping his foot and heaving big sighs through his smile when he thought people weren't moving fast enough.

He didn't even pause when the guys ahead of them vanished in that glowing beam. He stepped right up, swiped his and Greg's ID cards, and asked for the South Volgograd transport station.

Greg joined him only a beat behind, his knuckles white around the strap of his own bag. The pad and crowd of impatient officers vanished into pale white as the whine of the transporter grabbed them.

And suddenly there was a crowd around them. A big crowd, standing off the pad but surrounding it.

Greg tensed for a moment – he was security, and crowds were just big loud problems waiting to happen. Especially unexpected crowds.

But this crowd wasn't random – a moment after they appeared on that pad the crowd all but erupted, cheering and yelling and waving hands.

Pasha laughed at once, his face glowing in surprise and happiness. "Piotr!" he shouted, dropping his duffel bag as a stringy, bearded guy launched himself at Pasha to shake his hand. "Natalia!" at a woman behind that guy.

The skinny guy, Piotr or whoever, didn't hesitate before dragging Pasha down from the pad and into the crowd.

Everyone talked fast, some Standard and some Russian until it all sounded like gibberish. Greg stood there, bewildered, and scoped out the mass of people.

A lot of beards in Russia, he saw. A lot of kids, and old people, and red-cheeked chubby people who looked like they never frowned a day in their lives. Old clothes, tattered and shapeless, and grubby arms and faces.

Working people. These weren't some kind of scholarly, privileged people like Greg assumed Pasha had come from. These people looked like they came here right from work.

There was a sign or two floating above heads, handwritten in that strange, pretty Russian writing. Every last face he saw was so fucking happy looking he couldn't tell who there was actually in Pasha's family. Or if they all were.

He heard Pasha's name now and then in the cheering, especially when it died down to chatting and calling out. Pavel Andreievich, they all said, every time they said his name.

Right around the time Greg was starting to notice more and more people looking back at him, there was a booming voice over everyone's heads.

"Give him space!"

The group split apart like 'give him space' meant 'back the fuck off'' in Russian, and a man strode through the splitting group with Pasha's hand in his and Pasha stumbling to keep up. Beaming, though. So fucking happy it made his eyes squint, so Greg tried not to tense.

The guy dragging Pasha behind him was huge. Had a gut on him like he could've been pregnant with another fully-sized Pasha (and that thought kind of made Greg want to laugh). Big beard and shaggy hair all coated in grey. His skin was red, lined like he worked outside a lot. Greg knew that look from back home.

"This," the man bellowed, waving a hand towards Greg. "This is Greg!"

There was a cheer from the crowd, though Greg couldn't imagine his name meant shit to anyone there. They cheered, and some people called out to him like they had to Pasha.

And he felt his face going hot. He shrugged the duffel higher on his shoulder and picked up Pasha's where it had fallen on the pad, and he watched the guy warily.

"What?" The guy instantly pointed at Greg, pulling to a stop so fast Pasha seemed to smack into him from behind like smacking a fucking wall. "This is a guest! A _guest _must carry his own baggage?"

Greg had to fight not to tense, not to start throwing elbows, even though the people who surged up and grabbed at the two duffel bags were all laughing. The grabbing hands were there and gone before Greg could really work up to throwing a punch, and suddenly the crowd seemed to split up a little bit.

The duffels were gone in a flash, and people started drifting to the door of the transport center, leaving the pad and Greg and a couple of bearded techies in uniform (who looked like they saw this kind of shit every day) behind.

The guy hauling Pasha around stepped onto the pad, and his big paw was suddenly stretched out to Greg. "Andrei Nikolayevich Chekov," he said, seeming serious though his lined eyes were still glowing.

And fuck. This huge loud guy was Pasha's dad? His little, quiet, shy Pasha?

Greg shook, though, because shit. This was Pasha's dad.

"Lieutenant Commander Greg Harris," he said – he didn't always throw in the title but he kind of wanted to be at least a little bit impressive in some damned way.

"Yes! We heard about your promotion, congratulations!" Mr. Chekov's arm was suddenly around Greg's shoulder and he was leading Greg and Pasha both off the pad.

Greg wanted to look over at Pasha, but his dad's stomach hid Pasha from view.

"Uh. Thanks," Greg got out a minute later when he realized he was supposed to say something.

"Forgive us for the display, Lieutenant Commander. We don't always greet our Pasha in this way, but we heard very late that he was bringing a guest, and we do like to make an impression."

"You did that, sir." Greg hesitated, unsure of protocol being in Russia, or meeting a boyfriend's dad, or both of them together. He smiled, twitchy and unsure. "Just Greg, sir, if that's okay. I like the promotion but it's kind of a mouthful."

Mr. Chekov laughed, deep and loud, and clapped Greg's shoulder. "You are in Russia, you will be Gregor! And me you will not call sir. I am just Chekov here. There are a hundred Chekovs in our village, but I am _the _Chekov! Ask for Chekov and you get me."

"Got it." Greg tried to grin again and it felt a little less stiff. It'd be weird calling this guy Chekov, but whatever the man wanted.

"Pavel tells me you will be leaving us tonight for a short time."

Greg's grin vanished. "Yeah. Yes, sir. Uh. Chekov."

Chekov looked at him then, thick eyebrows raised high, and scoped Greg out all serious. "When you return," he said, his voice low. "I will make sure that only Pavel is here to greet you."

The words were too serious, and Greg figured Pasha had told his dad what Greg had to go do. But they were good words, and Greg hadn't realized he was worried about it but he relaxed a little so he figured he must have been.

"Thank you, sir. I'm sorry I've got to cut out this way, but..."

"We are Russian, Gregor." Chekov gave him one last hard slap on the arm. "We are used to hardship. It is why the Lord saw fit to bless us with vodka." He chuckled, but as he pushed them out into sudden bright, sharply-cold air, he fell back a step and hauled Pasha around casually so they could walk together.

Greg relaxed more then, with Pasha grinning and red and no longer hidden from him. He even found himself reaching out and grasping Pasha's sleeve for just a quick moment. Just to be that much closer for a second or two.

There was a shuttle port outside the transport station, and that crowd of people were cluttered inside one waiting shuttle. The sign on the front was in Russian writing, but Greg figured it was the name of Pasha's village.

He grasped Pasha's sleeve again before they followed Chekov on board, and he held on through the ride as he heard the fast, guttural voices around him jumbling all over each other until they melted like white noise.

* * *

It was pretty there. Greg wasn't sure he had any clear idea what he thought Russia was like, but he was surprised by what he saw. There was a lot of green. A lot of little, low hills. A lot of cool-looking buildings along the roads, with roofs shaped kinda like onions or something. Different, but pretty.

Pasha's village was an actual village, just how Greg might have imagined one. There were little wooden houses everywhere, stuck on hills and along paths like they wasn't any real design in mind when they built the place.

There were cows outside, chickens. Like being back home, but not really. It was sharp and cold, and there were wagons and donkeys and everything was wooden until it looked like they were a thousand years ago, not just in a different country.

He spotted more than a few pads and radios and those thin communicators that were big with civilians lately. It wasn't all archaic. In fact, he thought it was kind of deliberate, the way it looked. Maybe it was like those old west towns on the west side of South Dakota, places where tourists came in by the shuttle-full and gawked at guys dressed like ancient cowboys and shot at each other with fake guns.

Maybe in Russia what tourists liked to gawk at were donkeys pulling carts from one wooden house to the next.

The further they went the bigger the houses got, and everything stayed wooden and stone and natural-looking, but there were a few old cars and a couple of civvie transports out in front of the houses as the pathway stretched into a road.

Pasha and his dad talked pretty much the whole walk over, and it was kind of funny to listen to. Pasha would talk Standard because Greg was there, but he'd think about something or get excited about something and talk faster and faster until he slipped into Russian, like it was easier, and jabber on for a while with his dad in this other language until he caught himself.

He'd give Greg a 'sorry' smile and switch back to Standard and it went the same way.

Greg almost told him not to worry about it, that he wasn't really paying much attention whatever language they used. Not that he wasn't into it – there wasn't a lot he liked more than watching Pasha all excited, rambling on about something – but he couldn't focus on much of anything right then.

There was this big dark spot in his mind, and like Pasha would slip into speaking Russian, Greg would slip into that dark spot. Not even thinking specifically about home, or Marcus, but just feeling really gray and bleak and tired.

He kept thinking about stupid things, like his dress uniform. He brought it – didn't have nothing else to wear to a funeral, and he was an officer so he was supposed to wear it – but it was going to stir up so much shit when he showed up wearing it. He was practically inviting a fight.

If the funeral lasted a couple of hours, it'd be two in the morning in Russia. So he figured he'd get a hotel back in Hubert and crash before he came back. Sleep through the afternoon and evening. He'd have to remember to ask Pasha to give him the hour to come back from South Dakota when people in Ishevsk would be awake. He was shit with time zones.

"_Pizdec! Nyet, nyet!_" Chekov suddenly roared in his booming voice and took off, faster than Greg would've figured a guy his size could move.

Greg frowned ahead, but all he saw was a group of people standing around the porch of a broad, flat house.

Chekov charged up to them, but Greg knew when shit was going down and this wasn't one of those times. The people Chekov was shouting at just waved him off, laughing.

There was a touch to his arm suddenly, and he glanced over.

Pasha was watching his dad even as he pressed Greg's arm, and...

Hell.

He was so fucking beautiful, like all the time. But right then, with the cold making his cheeks pink and the wind ruffling his curls out, he looked so fucking peaceful.

This was home for him. Greg knew that just hearing him talk about it, but he saw it right then in a real way. Pasha went on and on about Russia all the time, and everybody chuckled at his bragging, but Greg could tell there wasn't anything fake in his pride.

He looked really peaceful. It was in his eyes, like a glow. If Greg was any less nervous about everything he would've been really tempted to grab him right there and kiss the hell out of him.

"They don't usually bring the entire village to meet me at the transport," Pasha said, his accent heavy but his voice light. "But there is always a party."

He smiled at his dad and the people he was now laughing with over by that house. "Papa told everyone that this time was different, that the party would have to wait. He didn't want you to leave for something like a funeral knowing we would still be celebrating here. But it looks like some people want the party to begin early."

Though they were close enough to hear what the little group was saying, they were all speaking Russian and Greg couldn't make out any of it. Pasha's dad was grinning by then, holding a cup of something they were all drinking.

Pasha looked up at Greg suddenly. "We will celebrate tomorrow, when no one is needed anywhere else. Is that okay?"

Greg thought to shrug, to say it wasn't his business, it was Pasha's home and his party. But Pasha's eyes were glowing green like the grass behind him, and Greg found himself smiling a little.

"Yeah, that's okay." Greg wanted to take his hand, hold his arm, something. The urge was so strong he had to squeeze his hand into a fist to resist it. "So...this is home, huh?"

Pasha nodded, looking around again instantly "It never changes here, really, but every time I come back I feel like I've got to learn it all over again."

"It's pretty," Greg said. He squinted past the upcoming houses and saw some taller buildings over another small hill. One of them, obvious for the strange, pretty rounded dome roof, rose over everything else. There was a cross at the top of the dome, and Greg figured it was a church.

The path under their feet had become cobblestone back where the road started getting wider. It felt more like a real town on this side, less like some weird tourist attraction showing what Russia would've been like a thousand years ago.

He liked it. He liked the city part, it felt more real.

Except for those few people talking to Chekov, everyone seemed to know the real celebration was happening tomorrow. People waved at them enthusiastically, though, even ones Greg recognized from the cheering crowd at the transport station. People shouted and pointed and called out to Pasha, and he always waved back, always grinned big.

Greg spotted one of those handwritten signs from the station, leaning up against the porch by Chekov and that little group. He nodded over at it. "What's that say?"

Pasha blushed dark. "The first line is my name in Russian. Pavel Andreievich."

"Yeah?" Greg grinned. "It's kinda cool looking. What about the rest?"

Pasha sighed through his smile. "_Geroy Rossiyskoy Federatsii.__" _He waved his hand like he was embarrassed or something, like the words meant anything to Greg. "It is only because of our first mission, Nero and the Narada, that they think of me as a hero. Only because they saw me on news vids all the way from America."

Oh. He smiled down at Pasha. "I didn't see any vids and I think you're a hero, so. I'm not gonna laugh or anything."

"It's just silly," Pasha said, though he did relax. "I tell them that everyone in Starfleet is brilliant, that on the Enterprise I don't stand out. But...it means something to them that I am from here. They are proud. They will talk as if I saved the universe all by myself, but that isn't how I describe it to them. Really."

Greg laughed suddenly, realizing why Pasha was tripping over his own words. "You think I'm suddenly gonna start thinking you're full of yourself? Don't worry about it, let 'em be proud of you. It's nice."

"Gregor."

They looked over, close enough to the house now that Chekov didn't even have to raise his voice.

Greg took a half-step to the side, a little worried about cozying up to Pasha in front of his dad. He didn't know what they thought about that kind of thing in Russia.

Chekov came up to them, and it was Pasha he looked at. "Pavel, _moj syn_. Your things have been put in your bedroom. Gregor will be in the guest room – perhaps you should check it and make sure he will be comfortable there."

"Papa." Pasha looked at his dad carefully.

"_Vpered._" Chekov lay his hand on Pasha's hair like he was giving him a blessing or something. "I will keep Gregor entertained for a few minutes."

Pasha glanced at Greg. He lowered his voice when he answered, his eyes uncertain, and his answer was all in Russian.

Chekov just shook his head. "We will be fine." He said it with a smile, casual, but Greg could tell from the tone of his voice that the words were more an order than a request. Or else Chekov was just a guy who was used to being obeyed.

Pasha shot Greg an apologetic smile, but murmured something to his dad and headed to that porch where those people were still gathered. Greg could hear the cheer from the dozen or so people as Pasha got closer.

He watched Pasha go for a moment, wishing he was going with him. But Greg Harris wasn't a coward, and he figured getting vetted by Pasha's dad wasn't something he was gonna worm his way out of.

So he faced Chekov and waited.

Chekov regarded him, solemn the further Pasha got from them. "Greg."

Greg returned his look, steady but giving him some ground. This was Chekov's home, Chekov's son. Greg was just visiting. Luckily security training gave a guy a lot of experience when it came to respecting a superior without looking like he was backing down.

Greg stayed quiet, waiting on Chekov. Letting him know Greg was showing him that respect.

Chekov spoke suddenly, his voice quiet and serious. "Are you good enough for my son?"

Greg blinked. "No, sir."

Chekov's eyebrows rose.

Greg hesitated, wondering if that was the wrong answer. He was a shit liar, and respecting a guy meant telling him the truth as Greg saw it.

"Honestly, sir, I never met anybody who _would_ be good enough for Pasha."

Chekov frowned, studying him. He didn't look satisfied.

Greg didn't say anything else, but he could feel the beginnings of the rejection he'd worried about. It made him feel instantly weary, instantly right back in that blank, depressed place he'd been in so much the last few days.

"Understand me, Greg. Pavel is my son, my only son. His mother was lost to us when he was a child. He is everything I have in this world. Everything that is worth anything." Chekov looked back towards the house, though Pasha was long gone inside and out of sight.

"It is painful enough having to trust my son to the stars and a crew of men I have never met. It is hard to let him go. It would be hard at any age, but my Pasha is so young." He sighed. "I gave him Starfleet because he wanted it so badly, and he earned it. I put my trust in a cruel universe, that he will return to me safely."

With his disheveled gray hair and thick beard Chekov didn't look a damned thing like Pasha, except Greg could see close-up that his eyes were green. He was a big guy, almost as tall as Greg, ruddy-skinned, loud, with that belly on him. He didn't seem much like Pasha at all. He sure as hell wasn't anything like what Greg had imagined.

But he was a dad. He was Pasha's dad, and it showed all over him as he faced Greg down.

"I let him go off and do a man's work in a man's uniform, but he is still a boy in many ways. When I read his letters or follow the news feeds about that ship of yours, I feel like I'm tempting fate. I feel helpless and far away, because there is no one in the universe who values my Pasha as I do."

Greg wasn't dumb enough to argue with that, but he straightened his shoulders a little and gazed at Chekov steadily.

Chekov sighed, looking a little tired. "Family is everything to us here. Can you understand that?"

Greg nodded, and it was a lie but not entirely. He understood the idea of it, even if he didn't know what that felt like.

He just wondered how much this was going to wreck things. Would Pasha walk out for good when his dad gave Greg the thumbs-down? Or would he defy his dad and feel like shit about it? Would Greg let him do that?

Probably.

Wasn't something he liked to admit, but. There it was.

Chekov cleared his throat, straightening from his slouch. "I did not send Pasha into the house so that I could interrogate you, Gregor. But I have some things to say that you should hear."

Fuck. Greg nodded once, sharp. He almost felt like he was at attention as stiff as his whole body was.

"Pavel writes me letters regularly, but he feels he must shelter his anxious father by only talking about the good things. He wrote me letters twice a week from the Academy, yet I had no idea that he was under constant threat from other students. Not until he wrote me to tell me of that threat being over."

Greg had to deal with that strange mix of amusement and fury that always came from thinking of Matt Lepinski and the first time he met Pasha, pulling him off the ground bruised and bloody.

"The first time he mentioned you, Gregor, was to tell me of a stranger coming to his aid when he was hurt. Then he wrote to tell me of your teaching him to protect himself, to prevent future hurts. Then you were in his letters always, something you said or did, and eventually just mention of you, that you were well."

He scanned Greg's face. "Finally Pavel wrote to me that he was fond of you. That he was in love."

Greg felt his face warming. He wasn't all that comfortable with the word yet, and it was weird hearing it from Pasha's dad instead of Pasha.

"I thought, och, so soon, and what will he do without his papa there to give him advice and soothe the broken hearts he will surely go through? In a way, that was harder to deal with than the distance and the danger." Chekov smiled suddenly, shaking his head. "But my Pavel has never been content to do things as they are normally done. He wrote me of no broken hearts, no confusion. I suppose he didn't feel that he needed to suffer the pangs of love most boys his age do. He wanted to skip ahead, like always."

Greg shifted his weight, uncertain he ought to say anything. "We've had a fight. A couple. I mean...it hasn't been all that easy."

"He can be stubborn," Chekov said like he was agreeing, or at least like he wasn't surprised. "He takes after his mama in that way. She, like him, could seem so young and so fragile. But if she made up her mind about something she could dig into the ground like a rooted tree and remain unmoved."

Greg smiled, quick and faint. "Sounds familiar."

Chekov returned the smile. He reached into his pocket suddenly, pulling out a thin wallet. He held it out to Greg. "You will find other similarities between them."

Greg took the wallet and held it up when he saw a photo inside, right on top where it'd be the first thing he'd see. A woman, holding a blanket.

Her eyes were brown - Pasha got his dad's eyes. But everything else about Pasha, from the curly hair to the slender frame and angled cheeks and even the shape of his nose...that was all from this woman in the picture.

She was pretty, but she looked tired in the picture. Happy, though. Real happy, and something about the way she held that blanket close made Greg know it was Pasha wrapped up in there.

Greg looked up at Chekov. "He looks just like her."

He nodded, pride in his eyes. "People would tease her when she married me: this tiny girl and Andrei Nikolayevich. But she was stronger than me. Pavel, I think, is stronger."

Greg held the wallet back out to him. "People..." He was still blushing, still a little unsure, but he figured seeing that picture was like a gift, and maybe he ought to say something in turn. "People gave him the same shi...uh, they said they same kind of thing to him, about me. You know, me being so big. He never cared nothing about that, though, or anything else people said."

"His mother's son." Chekov chuckled, putting his wallet away with just one last, smiling look at the picture.

"Was she smart like he is?" Greg asked suddenly.

Chekov laughed. "No one is smart like Pavel. Yelena – that was her name, my Lenochka – she was proud and stubborn, and strong, but she had little interest in knowledge, in books or learning. Nor do I. Pasha came from us, but his mind comes from something far greater than us." He sighed, his eyes glowing. "He is a miracle child, from the birth they feared Yelena would not be strong enough to see through, to the mind that has taken him onto starships younger than anyone else who has ever gone."

Greg nodded. He wasn't big on religion, and he didn't know if Chekov meant 'miracle' in that kind of way, but he knew well enough that there wasn't anyone like Pasha anywhere.

"And now you, Gregor. You are the man my miracle son has chosen to bring home to me."

Greg's face went hot instantly. He looked over towards the house, but that little group still stood around chatting and Pasha was still nowhere in sight.

"I meant what I said," he said finally, since Chekov seemed to be waiting for him to say something. "I know I'm not good enough for him. He picked me, yeah, and I have no idea why but I'm not about to fight him over it." He looked back at Chekov, unsure. "I'm not good enough, sir, but one thing I can say is...from the first day I met Pasha, I been trying to make myself better."

Chekov glanced towards the house, but didn't seem concerned about Pasha coming back anytime soon. He stepped closer to Greg and reached out, planting his hand on Greg's shoulder in a way that almost seemed friendly.

"I have told you how often Pavel writes home to me. I know a great deal about you, Gregor. I know of the time when you saved my Pasha's life at the risk of your own. I know that you have taken my son to your bed."

Greg winced.

Chekov just smiled. "I know also that you were honorable to the point of driving my son to frustration before you gave in to him."

Greg relaxed a little, flushing. "Well. Wasn't like I didn't want..." He stopped, realizing who he was talking to. "I mean..."

Chekov spoke again, still chuckling. "My point, Gregor, is that as a father I might have asked you what your intentions were, or what you would be willing to do for my son. I might have asked if you could make him happy, or if you were a good man at all. But those questions have all been answered before you ever arrived. He is safe with you, and happy, and a father will never be able to ask for greater than that."

Surprise kept Greg quiet. He studied Chekov, his bright green Pasha eyes and the grin hidden under his beard.

It wasn't that easy, was it? Greg was the big dumb shithead fucking this guy's kid, there had to be more to this.

Chekov clapped his arm. "I asked if you were good enough for my son. Because you are sure you're not, that was the last piece I needed to convince myself that you are." He grabbed Greg suddenly by both arms and hauled him in.

Greg froze in shock when a fast, hairy kiss was planted on his cheek, but relief made him stutter out a laugh when Chekov released him and put an arm around his shoulder.

"Welcome to Ishevsk, Gregor! You are with my son, and so you are family. You are home here, an honorary Chekov, and in this village that means something!"

Greg stumbled forward when Chekov started them walking, and he grinned awkwardly at the chattering group by the house as Chekov led them up.

"Ivan, David, Mikhail, Pavel Vladimirov..." The names kept coming, and the people the names belonged to grinned and lofted their drinks and shouted greetings.

Greg found himself was a cup in his hand somehow, and he laughed with everyone else when Chekov whapped a guy in the head for speaking Russian in front of their American friend, and he didn't follow a fucking word even when they kept on chattering in English after that.

But he drank – whatever it was it tasted like apples and went down like acetone – and found himself talking a little clumsily about the Enterprise and Starfleet and everything.

It took him longer than he would've thought to realize that something important was missing.

* * *

Greg pushed the cracked door open wider and stuck his head in, peering around with a growing grin.

It was like a kid's room, like Chekov hadn't changed a thing since Pasha was born. The walls were papered with what looked like little ducks everywhere, and there were star charts all over the walls, and a big poster of some guy who looked important hanging over a small desk crammed with papers.

Looked like Pasha got up in mid-study-session and took off for Starfleet, and not a thing had been moved in the meantime.

"Wow. This is actually kinda what I pictured."

Pasha looked up from a small bed and smiled. His duffel was open but still full of clothes, and he sat with an open binder or book or something, still as peaceful and calm as he had been since they got to Russia.

"You are in one piece?"

Greg slipped in and shut the door behind him, cutting off the voices of the men who'd come in as night fell and the world got too cold around them.

"Yeah. Your dad..." He grinned, relief and that apple drink making him flush. "I like him. I mean, he's really great."

"He is." Pasha beamed, but stayed where he was. He gestured at the thick binder thing open on his bed. "Do you...would you like to meet my mama?"

Greg moved in instantly. "I saw her picture. Your dad showed me." But he sat beside Pasha and saw that the book was full of old photographs.

Pasha slipped the book over until it lay between them. He reached out and traced his fingers over a picture, a close-up, kind of blurry shot of a woman's face.

"Lenochka." Greg said the name carefully. "That's what your dad called her?"

Pavel drew in a breath, his hand stilling. He nodded. "But to me she was always Mama." He looked over at Greg, his eyes bright. "I was six when she died, but she wasn't well most of my life. They say it was having me that made her weak."

Greg frowned, studying him, remembering Chekov saying something about how Pasha was a miracle from birth.

Pasha didn't seem sad. His smile looked real.

"Papa says that when she was close to having me and the doctors told her it was too risky, it just made her want me more. She said that if she died as I was born it would just give her a chance to go to the place where souls are waiting for life, and see me off like a mother should."

Greg looked down at the lady's face in the book. She was smiling in all the pictures on the open pages, but she didn't look half as happy as she did in the one Chekov had in his wallet. The one where she was holding her baby.

He reached out and took Pasha's hand, feeling a little bit caught up by the pictures and Pasha's adoration for his parents. "I gotta remember to track her down once I get to that soul place. Tell her thanks for not listening to a bunch of doctors."

Pasha blushed and squeezed his hand. "I wish I had more memories of her, but every time I come back home it's like she's just out of sight. Like she just stepped out for a few minutes. She feels close here, I suppose."

Since Greg had Pasha all to himself with a shut door between them and Russia, he didn't fight the urge to lean in, to bring their joined hands to his mouth and kiss Pasha's fingers, feeling sheepish about it but infected by the mood somehow.

"Thanks," he said, looking over at Pasha. "For letting me come. And for telling your dad all about me, and saying whatever you said in your letters that made him say I was welcome here."

It hurt, saying that, because Greg realized how huge a thing this really was. This was Pasha's whole life right here, his whole childhood and the place he thought of as home. This was everything about Pasha that wasn't on the Enterprise, and that was a lot.

Mr. Chekov knew it was a big deal – 'you're the man my son has chosen to bring home,' he'd said, or something like that. It was important, special. Greg knew more about Pasha just by sitting in that room than he would have listening to Pasha tell a hundred stories about Russia.

That hurt, because it made him realize that his stupid little plan for running home and racing back here and never mentioning it to anyone again was completely fucked.

Pasha looked back at Greg, his bright eyes searching.

Greg drew in a breath. "Your dad says family is everything to people here. He says..." He blinked, surprised by how unsteady he felt suddenly. "He says I've got a home here, I guess for as long as I don't fuck things up with you."

Pasha smiled.

"I know it's important to you," Greg went on clumsily. "I can guess how big a deal it was for you, bringing me to meet your dad. And your mom." He nodded at the album. "It means something to you that it never meant to me. I know you don't get that. I think I must've hurt your feelings telling you I never would've took you home to meet my folks."

Pasha didn't answer, but he didn't deny it.

Greg had never done something before this that he was so sure was a mistake but felt so much like it was the right thing to to anyway. He had to try a couple of times before the right words came out.

"It won't be anything like this. I'm telling you straight out, Pasha, there's not gonna be anything good about it at all. I think..." He looked down at Pasha's hand in his. "I think it'll make you hate me, seeing where I come from."

"Grischa."

Greg went on fast. "I may not tell them that you're with me, like this. Not because I'm embarrassed or nothing, you know that. Just I think it'd be dangerous."

Pasha squeezed his hand suddenly, and Greg looked over. "Are you asking me to come with you tonight?"

Greg hesitated. Mistake, his instincts said. Shouted, almost.

But Pasha shared his mom with Greg, and wrote his dad about being in love with Greg, and gave him a whole other home to go to.

Taking him back to Hubert felt like a punishment to Greg, but he knew Pasha didn't understand that. He would, though. He'd understand it tomorrow. And maybe understanding something about Greg that he didn't really get now...maybe for a smart guy like Pasha that was a kind of reward.

At any rate, Greg nodded and looked down at their hands and tried not to panic. "Yeah. I guess I am."


	9. Chapter 9

Family

Part Three

* * *

"No apologies, Gregor," Chekov said when Pasha told him he would be leaving with Greg, and Greg started to say he was sorry for taking his son away for even a few hours when he just got him back.

"No apologies," Chekov said, like it was no big deal.

But when the shuttle showed up to take them back to the transport station, Pasha got on and Chekov held Greg back for a moment.

"You have kept him safe when I couldn't," he said to Greg seriously as the shuttle hovered beside them. "But Pavel Andreievich is strong. You should let him take care of you in return, now and then, when you must do unhappy things."

Greg wasn't so surprised by the second kiss on the cheek – Russian guys did that, apparently, and it didn't mean anything weird – and he grinned his thanks as he got on the shuttle after Pasha.

"We will see you both in the morning!" Chekov waved as the shuttle started moving.

Greg held on to those words hard. He repeated them over and over on the ride to the transport station. As his stomach started doing cartwheels and his heart began drumming harder in his chest, he held on to those words.

No matter how bad this went, tomorrow it'd be done and over with. Tomorrow they'd be back in the cold, back with the laughing men and their apple drinks and Chekov and Pasha's mom smiling in his pictures, and it would be done.

Maybe if he could keep that in mind it would be easier to get through today.

Pavel took a look around the outside of the shuttleport in Hubert, South Dakota, and had one strange thought – he had no idea there was so much _space _in America.

He had only ever explored San Fransisco, though he had been to New York and Atlanta for conferences while at the Academy. Every city seemed crowded and crammed with things, no empty space to be seen.

Hubert, though, seemed to stretch in front of them. A wide, flat plain of yellow wheat, endless fields of it. There were no hills or mountains dotting the horizons, not near enough that his eyes could see them. It was vast and open and endless.

Hot, as well. Arid, so dry that even breathing made Pavel feel thirsty.

There was no one in sight, no one but the shuttle operators and a bored-looking cab driver who was watching them in vague interest. Pavel knew Greg hadn't told his family when he was arriving, but he might have thought someone would have had a general idea. Someone might have waited.

He looked over at Greg, wondering if he would somehow look at home with the endless yellow stretched out around him.

Greg was squinting at the wide blue expanse of the sky, his face tilted up like he was trying to catch the sunlight. But he didn't seem at home. He seemed tense, and ill, like he had been for hours.

He looked over suddenly, as if he could feel Pavel's eyes on him, and blinked down at him. He flashed a look that seemed like it was trying to be a smile but didn't manage to make it all the way.

Then he looked around, spotting the cab driver. "Come on, may as well go."

Pavel followed, looking back at the fields absently.

"Hey, you got the time?"

"'round noon," the cab driver answered, his voice even flatter than Greg's, the midwestern dialect pressing his vowels and dropping consonants. Pavel almost smiled – it was the first time he had ever thought about Greg as having a distinct accent, and only because he had this man's to compare it to.

Greg nodded over at the cab, and the driver sighed and pushed a button on a key fob that opened his trunk. He didn't say anything as he slipped into the driver's seat of the cab, and Greg didn't say anything as he shoved the one duffel with their two changes of clothes into the trunk and slammed it shut.

Pavel waited, unsure, as Greg opened the door to the back seat and climbed in, grimacing. "Shit. Fucking summer."

Pavel realized what he meant when he went to sit in the car and found a solid, broiling mass of heat waiting inside the vehicle. It took his breath for a moment, but the engine rumbled to life and there was a blast of warm air from the front of the car that started to cool almost at once.

He shut the door, shut them in to the spinning mass of cooling air, and shifted awkwardly against the uncomfortably hot fabric of the seat.

"Where we goin'?" asked the driver, staring back at Pavel through the rear view mirror.

"The Janssens still got that hotel in town?"

"Yep." The driver's eyes switched to Greg in curiosity. He put the car into motion without another word, but spoke again after a minute. "You from around here?"

"Yeah." Greg didn't offer anything more.

The driver didn't ask, though Pavel could see his eyes going to Greg frequently as he drove them.

There wasn't much to look at on the drive. More fields, more wheat. Wooden posts with wire stretched along them seemed to block out the fields, and there were occasionally over things in the fields. Wrapped bundles of hay, rusting equipment for irrigation. Some of the blocks of fields were clear-cut, housing cows and horses.

Pavel didn't see anything in the way of people, though. The equipment all sat silent, and the animals were left to their own devices. Too hot, he supposed, for mid-day work when the sun was its strongest.

The fields stretched out in the distance, but the nearer ones thinned and pushed back the further they went, until a small, dusty town seemed to begin almost arbitrarily along the road.

It was impossible to tell the age of most of the buildings – brick and cement, most of them – but they were in good condition. Everything seemed dingy, but Pavel thought it was more due to constant wind coating everything with dust than any sort of neglect.

There were people there, in the town. Sitting outside store fronts with drinks in hand, looking like they were as permanent a part of the landscape as the buildings themselves. Most eyes followed the cab as it passed, Pavel saw, and tried not to be too disconcerted by it.

Would his own Ishevsk seem so strange and unwelcoming if he were a solitary stranger passing through? He wasn't sure. He knew every face in his village, and they all knew each other, but they didn't often see strangers and perhaps they would watch passing cars carrying strange people with this same sort of suspicious curiosity.

They passed a white-walled building with a sign in the front and a cross on the roof, and a long black car parked outside. There were a few cars parked behind it, a few people gathering in sight of the road, dressed in dark suits.

Pavel frowned, looking over at Greg.

Greg watched the building pass by and didn't look back at it. He looked away from the window altogether, sitting as stiff as if he was on duty.

Pavel heard the driver breathe in suddenly, like he had seen their reactions and it was the last piece of some puzzle.

"You're Jake Harris's youngest," he said, voice casual though his eyes were wide in the mirror.

Greg's eyes flickered over to him, but he nodded.

"Sorry about your brother."

Greg snorted. "Yeah?"

The car fell into silence. Pavel watched the driver's eyes go back to the road and stay there.

Greg's head dropped back against the hot upholstery. He didn't look over, though he had to feel Pavel watching him.

They stopped not too far from the church, and Greg got out without a word and went around to get their bag out of the back.

Pavel left the now-chilled car and got hit again with the thin heat of the air outside, and he wondered how the people around them didn't make themselves constantly ill moving from hot to cold that way.

There was a table set up outside the building with the 'Hotel/Bar' sign tacked over the door. A couple of men sat there, beer bottles in front of them, silent and not bothering to hide that they were staring at the cab and watching who came out of it.

The silence was unnerving, but Greg came around the car before Pavel could go after him.

Greg leaned in to the front of the cab and handed off some credits to the driver, and the cab took off with a roar that kicked up enough dust that Pavel just barely managed not to cough.

Greg didn't even look at the men sitting by the door. He went in, silent, tension thrumming through him. Pavel followed quickly.

"Mrs. Janssen?"

The woman behind the counter could have been sixty or ninety or anywhere in between. Her hair was still mostly brown but her face was lines and more lines, like she'd lived in the sun her entire life.

But she smiled when they came in, and just that alone made Pavel like her almost instantly. He had never seen so many faces without a single smile before.

Greg approached the counter, and as he got closer the woman's face changed. Her smile faded, her eyes squinted.

And something came over her, something that looked strangely like fear.

"Greg," she said, her voice thin and flat like the cab driver's. "Greg Harris. Figured you for dead."

"Not yet." Greg either didn't notice the fear or was ignoring it. "Just need a room for a few hours, if you've got one. Won't be in town long."

"You here for your brother?"

"Yeah. Probably won't even stay the whole night, though."

The woman looked behind her, like she was hoping someone else was there, but after a moment she pushed a padd and stylus across the counter. "Fill it out."

Greg set the duffel down at his feet and glanced back at Pavel, just long enough to find him with his eyes. He leaned in and started filling out the padd screen.

"So how's Anna doing?" he asked after a moment, startling Pavel and the woman both.

The woman looked at him hard, though Greg was looking at the padd and didn't notice. "Married. Didn't hear about that?"

"Don't get much news where I am," Greg answered. "Good for her, though. Got kids?"

"One, and one on the way." The woman got more tense by the second.

Greg slipped the padd back across the counter. "I probably won't see her while I'm here, so...tell her hey. I went to school with her daughter," he threw back to Pavel, nodding at the woman.

Pavel didn't miss the way the woman backed up, the way she looked behind her one more time before she grabbed an entry card and all but shoved it across the counter.

Greg took the card with another nod and picked up the duffel.

Pavel followed him, looking back at the woman and trying not to feel too uncomfortable by the fact that she had a phone in her hand and was dialing before they even reached the narrow staircase.

* * *

The room was small, two narrow beds and a tiny, twenty-year-old vid display on the wall. Pavel only gave it a cursory look, though, before his attention went back to Greg.

He was getting worse every passing minute, practically. Even his voice when he spoke was flatter, stilted. His shoulders were squared, his spine stiff, and his movements jerky as he set the duffel on one of the beds and pushed the zipper open.

"I figure we can walk down to the church," he said, unaware of Pavel's silent study. "Then walk back when it's done, crash for a few hours, and get a cab back to the transport and get out of here."

Pavel had wanted to come – he had all but demanded it, in fact – but he found himself already in agreement. The faster they left this strange, silent place with its staring eyes, the better.

Greg cracked the closest thing to a smile he had in hours when he pulled Pavel's dress uniform out from among his things.

"You just happened to bring this from the ship, huh?"

Pavel shrugged, smiling just to see the small sign of life in Greg's face. "I'm an optimist, I suppose. I hoped I might need it."

The smile was short-lived.

They dressed in silence, and once they went through the instinctual process of straightening seams and polishing buttons, Greg spoke more tersely than ever.

"Stay quiet. Don't go drawing anyone's attention. No one's gonna mess with you, don't worry about that, but..."

Pavel nodded. "No fight is a good fight. I remember."

"I told you already, I probably won't tell them about us."

"I know. It's alright."

"It's not..." Greg shook his head, going to the dingy mirror in the tiny bathroom of the room and dusting off his spotless jacket. "Well, it is what it is. Anyway, stay quiet and if shit gets bad, just...I'll handle it. Okay?"

"Okay." Pavel watched him for a moment before he moved into the small bathroom to join him.

"Greg."

Greg turned, looking pale and nervous and unhappy.

Pavel met his eyes and smiled, small and sincere. "I love you. I'm proud of you. Will it help you to keep that in mind, whatever happens?"

Greg blinked, but he locked gazes with Pavel and after a moment he smiled. "Yeah. That helps. Thanks."

Pavel reached out to straighten one of Greg's citation pins. "I could go on, if you like. I could tell you just how sexy you are in this uniform, how strong you look in it. How it makes me wish we had more formal events on the ship just so I could see it more often."

Greg grinned, rolling his eyes and turning back to the mirror. There was color in his face, at least, even if the tension hadn't entirely dissipated.

"Tell you what, save that for later. I'll let you tell me all about how hot I am once we're out of here."

Pavel laughed and leaned up on his toes to press a quick kiss to his jaw, relieved that his Greg was still in there. "Deal."

It did help, though, Pavel could see that easily. When they left that room there was no trace of nervous, ill Greg. Instead he was every inch the Lieutenant Commander he was on a duty shift on the Enterprise. He moved sharply, he radiated strength.

He looked, in Pavel's opinion, like a walking recruitment poster for Starfleet, especially surrounded by such a blank, dingy world. Maybe Pavel was a bit fanciful in thinking so, but it was something positive to hold on to during the next few hours, so being fanciful didn't bother him.

The woman behind the counter – still there, still on the phone as they came down – gaped at Greg in his uniform like he was instantly a stranger again.

Greg walked past her without a word. Pavel didn't know if his imagination was working overtime, but he thought that the woman's blatant fear seemed to fade a little as she watched him leave, and her words into the phone got a little less urgent.

He knew he wasn't imagining the shock on her face.

Pavel drew in a breath before he followed Greg out the door into the thin, hot air.

"I think some people here don't know that you went into Starfleet," he said, almost amused by the gawking woman at the counter.

Greg shrugged, setting into motion down the dusty side of the empty road. "I don't figure anyone does. Don't think they'd care all that much." He glanced back towards the hotel. "Just as well they figure me for dead."

Pavel frowned at the road ahead. Dusty and quiet and strange, yes, but a small town with staring eyes, and he had no doubt that everyone working along that road knew everyone else.

"Your family doesn't talk to people? Your parents don't..." Pavel trailed off, wondering if he seemed hopelessly naïve. He knew Greg didn't get along with them, but... "Aren't they proud?"

"Nothing to be proud of, if you ask them."

Pavel shook his head, brow furrowing. "I don't..."

Greg drew in a breath, looking back up into the sky like he was drawing some kind of warmth or comfort from the feel of the sun. It was strong, glaring down at them and the town and just adding to the thin yellow cast everything seemed to take on, thanks to the wheat and the dust.

Pavel didn't say anything, though he wanted to prod at this strange town, he wanted to understand what made his Grischa who he was. He had a feeling this would be his only chance.

"Okay." Greg spoke up just as Pavel began to think they would finish the walk in silence. He didn't look at Pavel, just talked into the dusty breeze.

"So a few years back these Fleeters came into town once. That's what we call 'em here. Fleeters. Not meaning it to be nice or anything. Anyway, I got four brothers, and they were drinking one night, talking about these Fleeters walking around town like they're somebody."

Pavel watched Greg's profile, his eyes squinting up at the sky and his shoulders squared as if he expected a blow to the back at any moment.

"My brothers don't take too well to strangers walking around this town like they're somebody, so when they got enough beer in 'em they decided to go hunt these Fleet fuckers down and teach them a lesson."

Pavel had a strangely strong flash of memory suddenly, randomly. Matt Lepinski and his glowering friends, mocking Pavel for his youth and his accented Standard and his smaller size. Asking who he thought he was coming to their school and showing them up.

"I used to do shit like that with them," Greg said suddenly, looking over at Pavel with shadowed eyes. "You should know that. When I was younger...well. Shit. Anyway, I didn't do it when I got old enough to sort my own self out apart from them, you know? So I wasn't there that night. But next day my dad goes to Marcus, all pissed off. I guess they put one of the Fleeters in the hospital, and talk around town said Starfleet was sending people to investigate. Could've meant deep shit for all of them. My dad says this Fleeter in the hospital needs to get his mouth shut for him before he can go telling anybody who put him there."

Pavel blinked. "Get his mouth shut for him?"

"Yep. Means just what you think it does, too. They'd've tried to threaten him into keeping his trap shut, and if that didn't work they'd fuck him up so bad he wouldn't ever be a threat to them."

Pavel slowed down unconsciously, looking out in front of them towards the church in the distance, the figures gathering in their black clothes.

"So my dumb ass, I figure it's not right what they're planning. I get over to the hospital, find out where the Fleeter's room is, and hang out around the hallway waiting. My brothers show up after a while, all pissed and drunk, and I get in their way. For a minute they talked like I was there to join them. When they figured out I wasn't gonna let them in that room..."

He hesitated, a humorless smile flitting over his face. He glanced over at Pavel.

"I was family. Family doesn't turn on family, period. They'd've killed me if they could, pissed off as they were. As it was they fucked me up pretty bad, and all these doctors and visitors and shit standing around watching and asking each other if someone ought to call security or something. And nobody did a fucking thing until that Fleeter's CO and the investigating officers showed up. They didn't stop to ask questions, just broke things up."

Pavel looked out ahead of them at the yellowed horizon, feeling strange and aching. He wanted to stop. Wanted to turn and go back to the hotel and offer Greg whatever absolutions he could for never seeing any of those horrible people ever again.

But Greg kept moving.

"Anyway. I got kept in the hospital overnight, and the guy's CO came in to talk to me about what happened and why I did what I did, not like I could give him any decent answer. But I was thinking about it all night, thinking about how everything went down. And it hit me that when those Fleeters walked up on that fight and waded right in without asking any questions, saving my stupid ass when half the fucking town stood there watching...I realized those guys were the first people I ever met that I wanted to be like."

He drew in a breath, looking ahead towards the approaching church. "I didn't go home, didn't even call. Didn't want to. I left the hospital with the Fleeters, and took their transport all the way to California to sign up for the Academy. The Fleeter and his CO even helped me out.

"Wrote my folks once I was there and they let me in and I knew it was for real. Didn't hear back until my second year there. My dad, writing me to say Marcus was going to jail for a year for what he did to that Fleeter. He figured Marcus taking the fall for all of them made him real family, and I wasn't nothing but another fucking Fleeter queer, and I wasn't welcome back anymore."

His second year. One year before he met Pavel, picked him up off the ground after wading into a fight without asking any questions.

Pavel wondered if he had made the right choice, pressing Greg about going home. About bringing him along.

He wondered if maybe he knew enough just hearing that story. Maybe there were nothing else to be learned in actually meeting the people Greg talked about. The people who had thrown him away. Pavel wanted Greg to meet his papa, to see his home, because so much of Pavel was there. Because he felt Greg wouldn't know him entirely unless he knew that part of him. But Greg...

Greg wasn't there. He wasn't in that hot air or in those wheat fields or in town with its staring eyes. Greg was at the Academy, pulling Matt Lepinski off of Pavel without even caring why the fight had started.

Ishevsk was part of Pavel; Hubert was what Greg had to cast away before he could really grow into himself.

The difference was shocking, though perhaps that was naivety again, Pavel assuming that his own type of deep roots were common.

Shocking, yes, but there was something else to it. Something that made Pavel regard that white-walled church and decide that he didn't want to drag Greg back to the hotel unseen. He wanted to go, to stand with Greg while he said his goodbye to his dead brother, and goodbye to the living remnants of the family he was born into. He wanted to be at his side, proud and strong, and show everyone there just what they threw away in Greg.

Greg didn't say anything else as they went, and Pavel kept his eyes forward and his shoulders back as they approached the church and a few of the people waiting outside noticed them coming.

They weren't even close enough to make out the murmurs of the group when a man suddenly came through the side door where the crowd stood and looked right out at them as if he'd been warned.

One of Greg's brothers, Pavel could tell right away. Taller than Greg, which was saying something, and broader in the shoulders. But there wasn't much resemblance beyond that. He looked like he might have once been solid like Greg, strong and fit, but he'd given up working for it years ago. His hair was shaggy and overgrown, dark brown where Greg's was buzzed short.

There was none of the warmth on this man's face that Pavel knew Greg had inside of him.

"What the _fuck_ are you doing here?" the man all but spit as he charged up to them. He gave Pavel one scowling look, but his anger seemed to be stuck on Greg.

Greg didn't stop moving. "What do you think?"

"Fuck you." When Greg kept going the man grabbed for his arm.

Greg knocked him away, fast and sharp with all the instinct his job in security had built in to him. He turned a look on his brother that Pavel could imagine him turning on a pack of Klingons.

"Keep your hands off me, Dan. I won't be here long."

Pavel stood there, strangely calm, simply gazing at Greg's brother. He turned when Greg turned, and moved at his side towards the gathered group. He didn't even look back at the man they left behind, since Greg didn't.

Greg moved past the hushed group and into the side door Dan had come out of. He managed to ignore the sickly change from hot air to gusty and cold, keeping his focus on Greg instead.

He spotted Greg's other brothers easily – they were near carbon copies of the one who met them outside, and there weren't enough other people in that church to make them hard to find.

There was a platform set up for a coffin but it was gone – no doubt on its way to that long car in the front, to be taken for burial. People were standing, talking quietly as they waited to leave, and Pavel couldn't find it in him to feel guilty that they came too late for the service, especially when he doubted they would make it to the grave site.

"Hey, mom."

He heard Greg's quiet voice and turned instantly, focusing his attention back where it belonged.

The woman Greg had gone up to was as unlike him as a person could get. She was tall but slight – almost alarmingly thin, really, with sunken eyes and jagged cheekbones. She wasn't old, Pavel thought, but her mouth was creased with lines. A smoker, maybe, or else just a woman who spent a large amount of time scowling at people. Her hair was long, straight dirty blond and grey, dull and dry. Malnourished, he thought.

She looked like a woman who hadn't eaten regular meals in a long time.

If Pavel thought perhaps his mother would greet him with at least some fondness, he was disavowed of the idea fast.

"Well, lookit you." There was a sneer in her voice, and Pavel didn't understand it. How could any mother fail to be proud of the man that stood there?

It became a little clearer to him when she took a step towards him and stumbled, swaying for just a moment before pulling up straight again.

Drunk, Pavel realized even as Greg's face went red and his gaze dropped. He didn't reach for her, Pavel saw. Didn't even try to help.

This wasn't a surprise to Greg. This wasn't anything unusual at all.

"Guess you think you're some kinda hotshot in that outfit. Guess you done made something of yourself, huh?" She laughed, a dry, crackling sound. "You don't call us no more, don't write. Sure as hell don't send any money home, do you?"

"Mom..."

Pavel moved up a step, hearing the strength seeping out of Greg's voice. The doubt, the tension, was taking its place again.

His mother looked at Pavel as he moved up, but her eyes never focused exactly on him. She didn't ask or seem to care who he was, she just waved her hand towards Greg gracelessly.

"Dumbest one of the lot, everybody said. Could barely teach him to read, and look at him. Wearing that costume like he's some hotshot."

Pavel's eyes were drawn by Dan, the brother from outside the church, moving behind Greg's mother and approaching his two lookalikes. They barely spoke, but their hard-eyed gazes went to Greg and stayed there.

Greg wasn't looking at them, or his mother. He didn't lift his eyes until another man approached from behind his mother, coming up to her side and facing Greg.

Shorter than his sons, but just as broad. Thick neck and thick arms, tanned deep brown from working in the sun.

"You best get out of here before you get thrown out."

Greg looked up, his determined strength melting away without a trace. "I just came to say goodbye," he said.

"Said that a few years back," the man answered, terse. "Nobody asked you to come here. Burying my son today, don't need no Fleeter piece of shit showing his face around. You got nothing to do with this, Greg."

Greg's mother laughed, distant. "Fleeter, in that uniform like some kind of-"

"Shut the fuck up," Greg's dad barked out, grabbing the woman by the arm and shoving her back behind him.

She stumbled hard. Her legs hit the back of a pew and she fell onto the bench with a thud.

Nobody made any move towards her.

Greg's dad didn't even look back. His cold eyes stayed fixed on Greg. "You get out. And you don't come back. You hear me?"

Greg nodded, his throat working.

"You show your face here again, I'm gonna let my boys do you like they been talking about for years. Now get out."

Greg turned without a pause, without a word. He headed for the side door of the church, still standing open with a few gawking faces peering in watching the argument.

Pavel turned with him.

He kept his mouth shut, didn't draw attention to himself, just as Greg instructed. He didn't even think about standing up for Greg – anything he said would be wasted, that was clear enough. These people didn't want to know how many lives Greg had saved, or how he was the best security officer on the best ship in the entire Fleet.

They didn't want to hear it. They wouldn't have cared, even if they had let him talk. The words didn't mean a thing to this family. Pavel doubted that anything that happed outside the borders of this parched city was meaningful to them. They would have laughed him off, or come at him swinging, and it wouldn't have done a thing to help.

So Pavel didn't bother trying.

He just wanted Greg out of there, wanted him safe in the Chekov home in Ishevsk, with his papa laughing and telling stories, or gathering the village for a party. That was the only thing in the entire world that he wanted at that moment.

"Greg."

Something about his father's voice made Pavel want to push Greg on, to steer him right out the door without pausing.

But Greg stopped moving.

He didn't turn back, just stood there and waited. Almost like he knew what was coming.

His father's voice was too loud. Too punched. He spoke because he wanted everyone to hear him, not because he had something that needed to be said.

"First thing I thought when the cops told me about Marcus...if I had to lose a son why couldn't it have been you."

Greg's shoulders twitched: the blow he had been waiting for that entire visit had just landed.

Pavel turned around.

He was, in everything he did, a learned man. He retained almost everything he had ever learned, and he had learned about everything he could think of. Since he was a child his mind was constantly in action, looking for things to know.

His mind hushed, though, in that moment. A brain that couldn't look at an object without sifting through the encyclopedia of facts he had accrued about that object...suddenly it went very quiet.

Still, Pavel Chekov was a genius, and what he learned he used.

His mind didn't have to consciously remind him how to form a fist in the proper way, so that he wouldn't break his own fingers throwing a punch. His hand formed that proper, textbook fist without being guided.

He could hear his own voice from a distance, could see the too-slow gaze of Greg's father turning to him as he charged, as if just noticing him there.

It hurt, Greg was right. It hurt to hit someone. But when Greg's father was stumbling back against the same pew he had pushed his wife into, and Greg's brothers were just starting to stir from their shock, his brain woke back up.

_Well done, _it said. He didn't break any fingers.

Well done, then, and no fight was a good fight, but Pavel would never for a moment regret what he just did.

Greg's father recovered quickly, though, and his brothers were already setting into motion, and Pavel remembered the instruction he had willed himself to forget – 'don't go drawing anyone's attention.'

His hands formed two more perfectly curled fists, and he faced them.

But Greg, like he always did, moved fast to defend when he himself wasn't the target. He was suddenly there, suddenly at Pavel's side and then stepping in front of him, between Pavel and his brothers.

"Touch him," Greg said, the first clear thing Pavel had heard since his father's last words. His voice was as firm and strong as Pavel had ever heard. "Just try it."

A dare. Pavel squared his shoulders and stared out at Greg's brothers, and his father as he dropped his hand from a lip that was satisfyingly staining with red.

One of Greg's brothers stepped up to his father, glowering at Greg and Pavel. There was an outraged anger in his eyes that was strangely, entirely satisfying for Pavel.

"You're gonna stand with that Fleeter against your own family?"

"You're not my family," Greg answered, his voice flat.

"Damn right." The brother from outside, Dan, moved in to his dad's other side. "Fucking faggot. We kicked your ass once."

"Years ago." Greg hardly moved. "I've learned some things since then."

Pavel looked over, drawn by the power humming through Greg's voice.

There, there was the Greg Pavel first met years ago. There was the man who would wade into a pile of bullies to help a pathetic Russian child he didn't know. This Greg wore his uniform proudly. He taught people to defend themselves. He would stand against four over-sized brothers in defense of a stranger in a hospital bed.

It showed in Greg's face as he faced down his family. It flashed behind his brown eyes, showed in the set of his jaw. In the almost casual way he spoke, flat but matter-of-fact. Pavel had a feeling that if he were seeing Greg for the first time at that very moment, he would not doubt that this was a man who could and had bested a dozen Klingons in battle.

This Greg wasn't scared of anything, much less a pack of thick, small-minded farm boys or their father.

Perhaps they weren't entirely idiots, because the men facing Greg and Pavel seemed to understand what showed on Greg's face. They didn't move, just stood there glaring as if their anger alone could hurt him.

Maybe it could, but not at that moment. Greg waited until it was more than clear that it was their move and they weren't taking it. Then he glanced over at Pavel and nodded over at the door.

"Fuck 'em, let's go."

Pavel shot the men a disdainful look (and took a last satisfied look at their father's split lip) and followed Greg back to the door.

The unashamedly gaping spectators in their wrinkled black suits and skirts backed up when Greg led the way through the door.

* * *

When Greg walked right past the narrow doorway into Hotel/Bar, Pavel didn't ask him why. He let himself be carried in Greg's wake, though his hand was aching and he really wanted to leave the dry outdoor air behind, even if the whirling blast of air conditioning was the only other option.

Greg moved with more determination than he had done anything since arriving in that town, and so Pavel kept his mouth shut and followed.

The silence seemed to nip at him, though. It gave him far too much time to replay the last hour, to hear a father speak unforgivable words, and to see Greg's shoulders jerk like he'd been dealt a blow to the back.

Pavel had never in his life thrown a punch at someone who wasn't attacking him first. He had never been the type to express anger with violence. He wasn't sure yet if he had hit Greg's father because he realized that violence was the only thing any of those animals would understand, or if...if he just really wanted to hurt him.

God. He hit Greg's father.

Greg had jumped to his defense, the way he always did, but maybe Greg was furious with him. Maybe Pavel had gone too far, had acted just the wrong way. How could he think that reacting with violence to Greg's violent family was acceptable?

He could have done other things. He could have told them, the way he first wanted to, exactly who Greg Harris was. He could have told them about how many people he helped. About the Klingons, Matt Lepinski, Rachel Faraday on the Enterprise, who Greg was spending extra hours helping because she had been beaten by an old boyfriend, and Greg couldn't stand abuse like that.

But no. He could have told them that, if they had let him talk, but it wouldn't have mattered to them in the slightest. Greg's brothers _were _Matt Lepinski. Greg's father threw around his thin, haggard wife.

Everything Greg fought against was back there in that church.

Greg led them down the same straight, dusty road, not speaking, not worried anymore about who saw him. Still in his uniform, still determined and upright and...if not proud, something close to it. He was on a mission, Pavel could tell, and so Pavel followed him silently even as his thoughts grew less and less settled.

"Greg?"

It was a woman's voice, high and surprised and coming up behind them, and Pavel turned fast, on edge and ready to step in to protect his lover from any other unpleasantness.

She looked to be about Greg's age, maybe a little younger, with a pale, open, surprised face and a rounded belly that spoke to a pregnancy at or nearing the third trimester. She was moving fast despite her belly.

"Greg, hang on!"

Pavel looked back at Greg, wary.

Greg didn't tense when he saw her, though. He almost smiled, stopping and moving back past Pavel to meet her. "Anna. Hey."

"Jesus, Greg! I can't believe it's really..." The woman, Anna, stopped in front of him, wide-eyed on his uniform.

Greg's smile was awkward. "I saw your mom earlier."

"She called me."

Pavel had a flash of memory, the woman at the hotel grabbing the telephone the moment Greg turned his back. They talked about her daughter, who Greg used to know.

"You look great, Greg," the woman said, and Pavel had to wonder with a flash of tension just how well they used to know each other. "Rumor around here was you were dead. There was a bunch of talk about some fight with your brothers, and then you were just gone. Cops even went out to the farm to talk to your folks, but nothing ever happened."

"Yeah?" Greg's smile looked almost more painfully false then. "Guess they'd rather let people think I was dead than tell them what I really was."

She laughed, but it was uneven. She had to know it was true, and that it was a pretty awful thing. "Never would've guessed you went Starfleet, though. Mom said...well. You look great. What do you do up there, anyway?"

"Security." Pavel was surprised to hear himself answering, and he took a step closer to Greg unconsciously. "He is a Lieutenant Commander on the USS Enterprise. With me."

She seemed impressed, but didn't say anything. She looked from Greg to Pavel and back again, and shifted awkwardly. "Well. Um. Where you headed? Aren't you staying at the hotel?"

Greg nodded back down the road. "Wanted to see Doc Miller, see if he was in." He glanced over at Pavel. "Wanted to introduce him."

"Oh, hell." She frowned, reaching for Greg's arm but stopped, dropping her hand with a glance at Pavel. "Doc's been dead a couple of years, Greg. A guy from Sioux City got brought in to run the clinic a while back, he's the only one there now."

Greg looked back at her, his face falling. His throat worked. "Oh."

Pavel was disturbed to watch him, to see that this was the most obvious he had been about being crushed by something since he arrived in that town.

Anna seemed to realize it, too, and after another minute or two of awkward catching-up, she said something about getting off her feet and wandered off.

Greg stood for a minute as if unsure where to go or what to do, but before Pavel could speak up he got his bearings and turned. Silently they walked back the way they came, back towards the hotel.

"Who was Doc Miller?" Pavel asked after a moment.

Greg didn't answer for a moment. He walked on trudging feet, looking bent by the heat or the situation. "Nobody. Just..."

"Greg." Pavel couldn't walk any closer, not in that street with those staring eyes, but he spoke softly and kept pace with Greg's heavy steps. "Please."

"He ran the clinic here when I was growing up." Greg kept his eyes straight ahead. "He'd patch us up all the time, me and my brothers and my mom. He was..." Greg hesitated, his throat working again. He cleared his throat. "He told me...he was the one who said I should get out. Everyone else figured I was just another dumbass Harris kid, but...he said..."

He glanced over at Pavel, smiling painfully under wet eyes. "He would've been proud, I think. I wanted you to see...he was the only one who saw something..."

Pavel saw the hotel coming up. He squeezed Greg's arm, quick, and nodded him forward. "Come on."

They passed the woman behind the counter, and a couple of onlookers sitting further back in the 'bar' part of Hotel/Bar, without a word or a glance.

He didn't know about Greg, but Pavel for one had already left this place and these people far behind.

"I wanted you to know," Greg said the moment the door to their rented room shut behind them, "that somebody thought I was worth a shit."

Pavel hesitated in answering. There was far too much swirling around in his head, way too many things he wanted to say in response to that. There were far too many arguments to make, if Greg really thought that Pavel's view of him might change because his family thought he was worthless.

Too many words, and they all piled up over themselves in his head and left him mute.

Finally he sighed. "We should change. It's too hot for these uniforms."

But he saw Greg's shoulder's slump as he nodded, and he plucked off his own uniform with distracted speed, knowing he couldn't leave it at that.

Greg had brought him here because Greg realized how important family was to Pavel. No doubt he feared that Pavel would judge him in some way because of how his family treated him. No doubt he had a lot of fears in his head that were entirely absurd.

No doubt there were a dozen things weighing him down on top of all that, things that didn't have a thing to do with Pavel.

By the time Pavel was down to his undershirt and had pulled on the civvie jeans he had arrived in that morning, Greg had only gotten his dress jacket off.

Pavel spotted him in the bathroom, face dripping with water from the sink and his eyes locked on his own reflection in the mirror, stark.

Pavel swallowed, hoping he was up to this sort of responsibility.

He moved in behind Greg, stopping in the bathroom doorway.

"I'm sorry," he said after a moment.

"You?" Greg snorted softly. "Sorry for what?"

"I'm sorry that they are the ones you're forced to call family."

Greg's eyes lowered for a moment. "I don't care." He looked back at Pavel through the glass. "I mean, about them. I hate them. Always have, at least since I was old enough to realize what was what. Why the fuck should I care what they think when I hate them?"

Pavel moved in slowly. "Because they're your family," he answered, "and that gives them a claim over you that you can't will away."

Greg's fingers curled around the edge of the sink. "That's not fair."

"But it's true. I know that you hate them. But you care, and it would only hurt you later to try to pretend that you don't."

Greg shuddered, looking away from the mirror altogether. "I shouldn't have brought you here."

"I'm glad you did."

"Why?" Greg turned to him, the pain on his face solid and deep. "How are you ever gonna be able to look at me and not see this fucking place?"

Something in Pavel's chest cracked, ached with the hurt radiating from Greg. He moved in, slipping his hands to the fastening at the collar of Greg's uniform shirt.

"My father," he said slowly, watching his own hands as he carefully undressed Greg. "He calls me a miracle child. He has since I was born. Sometimes...and in this I can understand how you feel, because I would wonder after my mother died how he could call me that. How could he look at me and not see the thing that weakened his wife until she died?"

Greg breathed in raggedly.

Pavel hesitated, but peeled his shirt over his broad shoulders and moved around him to tug it free from him. Greg didn't move, just stood there waiting, listening.

Pavel folded his shirt absently. "Still, that's not my point. My point is, my father calls me this thing, miracle. Because I shouldn't have survived to be born, and because of this brain of mine that he says could not have come from he or my mother. Do you know what I think?"

Greg didn't answer.

Pavel went out into the outer room, laying Greg's shirt over the chair he had dropped his dress jacket on. He spoke as he picked up the crumpled jacket and draped it carefully so it wouldn't wrinkle.

"What I think is that there is nothing miraculous about me. A child who grows up with adoring parents, who is encouraged to learn all he can, who is never doubtful of his security...there is nothing special about that child becoming a capable adult."

He turned back to the bathroom.

Greg had moved into the doorway but stood there still, watching Pavel.

Pavel came up to him, holding his hand out. He smiled, frail but real, when Greg took his hand and let Pavel pull him into the room, to the bed.

"I think," he said, nudging Greg to sit and crouching down to unfasten his heavy boots, "that since the day I met you, when you were so brave and kind to help a person you didn't know, I have never stopped thinking of you as good. A truly _good_ man, which in itself is rare enough."

He hesitated, using Greg's boots as an excuse. He pulled them off, one after the other, and straightened.

Thinking about those days, their Academy days getting to know each other, he thought about how Greg had always blushed from the smallest compliments. Always he was surprised by them. He was so quick to speak badly of himself, so dismissive of everything he did, as if it couldn't matter if it came from him.

A lot of that remained in Greg, and it hurt Pavel to realize that. He was still dismissive of himself. Still he jumped to anyone's defense, but let himself be hurt without making a move to protect himself.

He never let himself be around other people when he was truly angry. He never drank enough alcohol to really feel it. Not once the entire time Pavel had known him.

Funny how much that all made sense now. Funny, and horrible, and Pavel shook his head in amazement at it all.

He stepped up to the bed, stood between Greg's legs as he sat there. He slipped a hand over Greg's hair, sifting through cropped dark hair gently.

"You are a good man," he said softly. "You were raised by monsters, raised to be a monster, but you are a good man instead. That is a real miracle. That's what I'll see in you now, thanks to this place."

Greg leaned in to him, his arms closing around Pavel's waist. He buried his head in Pavel's shirt, breathing harshly and fast.

Acceptance, Pavel thought, could be just as painful as rejection, if a person didn't believe they deserved it.

He stroked Greg's hair, soothing, and looked down at him through blurring eyes. "_Moyo chudo_," he murmured without thinking. "_Moj ljubimyj...ty ne odin._"

He could feel the damp warmth of tears soaking through his thin undershirt. He wasn't surprised by it, but was surprised by the rush of anger that rose up in him in response.

Pavel was not a violent man, but if he laid eyes on Greg's father or any of his brothers again, he would hit first and talk second. He wanted to shout at every person who had sat back staring at them from the moment they drove into that town. He wanted to know who they were, how much they saw. How they could let this brutish family try so hard to destroy a man who was so truly decent.

How many eyes had stared while Greg was being beaten by his brothers in that hospital he had told Pavel about? How man had watched him through his life and done nothing to show him any kindness at all?

He wished that the doctor Greg had mentioned was still alive. Whatever he had done to get through to Greg, whatever he said to him that told Greg he was someone worth saving, Pavel wanted to know it. He wanted to thank him for it.

"I love you, _moyo chudo,_" he said softly. "Nothing I've seen here has changed that. It's only made it stronger."

Greg's hands clenched in his shirt. He stilled, breathing raggedly as his shudders slowed to a stop. "Pasha..."

"What is it, my Grischa?"

"Why do I care so much?" Greg spoke hoarsely, pained. "When I knew what it'd be like, why does it still hurt so fucking much?"

Pavel swallowed. "They were the only family you had, and you are too good a man to not care about that. But now...you have me. I am your family. My papa will treat you like a son whether you want it or not...let him. He can be your family. And Hikaru, and Kirk and McCoy, and Nyota and Scotty and Spock, and all the people I think of as my family, who call me family. They will be yours, too. And you'll never come back here, not ever, not for weddings or funerals or anything else, because from now on these are only the people who tried to raise you. Nothing more."

Greg looked up at him, which must have been hard for him - the tracks of tears were still visible on his face, and Greg was a man who always wanted to seem strong, even when he wasn't. Still, he looked at Pavel and drew in a deep breath, and nodded.


	10. Chapter 10

Family

Part Four of Four

* * *

Greg went to wash his face and get ready for bed – they still had a few hours before Ishevsk began to wake up, and they both needed a rest – and Pavel took advantage of the silence to take his padd from his bag and write a quick message to his father.

_Papa, _

_I have seen how horrible fathers can be, and I owe you more thank yous than I could manage in a lifetime. Now for Greg I owe you a lifetime more. He needs us, papa, and thank you for knowing that before I did, and for offering him a home before I knew he needed one so badly. I don't know how you always know the right things to say, but thank you a million times for it._

He sent the message off with a growing sense of melancholy.

There was no way to fix something like this. This wasn't like an argument, or a misunderstanding that needed a few minutes' talking to clear up. Greg wouldn't be healed with a few loving words from Pavel, or a visit to his father. Greg wouldn't be healed at all, maybe.

It was a hard thing to accept, that Pavel simply had to accept what those creatures had done to his Greg. Offering him a second family, and letting him now that their years of hostility and insults and hatred weren't his fault, those were patches. Bandages, not cure.

That wouldn't stop Pavel from offering them, of course, but it wasn't enough. Pavel's mind worked for solutions, not panaceas.

When Greg emerged from the bathroom Pavel was no more settled. He stood to greet him, determined to at least provide panacea if that was all that was available to him.

"Come on, _moyo chudo._ A few hours of sleep might help – Ishevsk is celebrating tonight, which means they won't let us sleep until the sun starts to rise."

Greg flashed an achingly small smile and crawled into the narrow hotel bed with Pavel, still tense all over but at least he didn't pull away when Pavel curled into him and held on tightly.

Silence fell, and though the sun still burned hot outside Pavel had drawn the blinds and pulled thin curtains over them, so it was dark enough.

Still, sleep didn't come. It felt too early – in Ishevsk it was still morning, still dark and silent. But Pavel hadn't shaken himself of being on starship time, and all this sunlight and heat didn't help.

Or maybe it was his own mind, working too hard and too loudly, that wouldn't let him sleep. He couldn't stop replaying events of the day.

He couldn't stop seeing that shift of Greg's shoulders when the words from his dad fell on him. He couldn't keep from wondering how long it took a boy growing up with a father like that before he showed no reaction to that father wishing him dead. Nothing but a twitch in his shoulders.

Pavel found himself tracing the pads of is fingertips over one of those broad shoulders, almost in sympathy, as if they really had taken a physical blow. The sun spilling between the lines of the blinds in the window let in more than enough light to see, and he almost smiled to see the scratches on his own knuckles.

He should have hit harder.

The light caught in Greg's eyes, drawing Pavel's attention and making him blush to see he was being watched.

"Did I wake you up?"

"I don't think I'm gonna get any sleep here," Greg answered quietly.

No surprise there, probably. Pavel sighed, wondering if he ought to suggest they pack up and leave, even if life in his own village wouldn't begin to stir for a few more hours. The shuttle from the transport station wouldn't even be running this early, but maybe waiting the hours out there would be better than waiting here.

Then again, he still felt rather unsettled, as if the day's work in Hubert, South Dakota wasn't done yet. Since he wanted nothing to do with anyone outside that door, though, that only meant he had something more to say to Greg that he hadn't thought of yet.

And this would be their last few hours alone, before being back in his father's small house.

Greg cleared his throat quietly, as if he'd just had the same thought. "I'm sorry about all this. I know you don't want to hear that, but let me say it anyway."

Pavel smiled faintly. "Alright."

"I shouldn't've brought you here." He hesitated, then flashed the smallest twist of a smile. "First thing they teach us to do when something bad happens – make sure nobody else gets close enough to get hurt by it. Should've remembered that."

"Greg." Pavel met his eyes, chastising. "I am no uninvolved spectator wandering into a crime scene. You warned me enough, and I made my choice. I want to be there for the unpleasant things. I am strong enough to stand with you."

Greg met his eyes. Suddenly his smile cracked, grew sincere. "Strong enough to throw a few punches, too."

Pavel blushed, curling in to hide his face against Greg's chest. "I can't believe I did that."

"Me either, but...no one ever did anything like that for me. You know? And you...I know you're not a guy who hits first and thinks later, so...so you doing that..." His arms slipped around Pavel, holding him where he was. "Didn't hurt your hand, did you?"

Pavel laughed. "I had a good teacher, I was careful."

"Good."

His laughter faded. He tilted his head up to look at Greg.

Greg's throat worked, but he looked down and met Pavel's gaze. "What?"

"I don't understand. Why..." Pavel hesitated. "You were ready in an instant to protect me. Why do you never try to protect yourself?"

Greg frowned, but shrugged. "Never thought about it like that, but...come on, Pasha. You know by now I'm not ever gonna stand around and let someone come at you."

"I wish you would hold yourself as important in your mind as you hold me."

"Doesn't work like that."

"Why not?" Pavel frowned.

Greg smiled. "You charged at my dad and laid him out, Pasha. Have you ever done that because someone said something mean to _you_? All those bullies in the academy, hostiles on landing parties? You ever even thought about doing that before?"

"No." Pavel considered that, thoughtful. "But I came to you back then, to learn at least to defend myself. I doubt I would have ever attacked Matt Lepinski just because he was cruel to me, but I would have fought back if he attacked."

"You think I wouldn't've fought back if they'd come at us earlier?" Greg's smile was still steady, but his eyes were shadowed.

He knew, Pavel thought, just what Pavel meant, and that there was truth in it. But he obviously had no answers to give.

Maybe he would think about it, though. And Pavel would bring it up again, sometime when they were less close to all of this.

For now, he was tired of seeing pain in Greg's eyes. Everything couldn't be healed in a day. Sometimes just exposing the wound would have to suffice.

Pavel tilted his head up and brushed his lips over Greg's jaw. "You really ought to try and sleep. This will be a very long day."

Greg sighed. "I can't even get myself to relax, much less sleep. It'll be okay – at least we don't have to pull duty shifts for another week."

"That's true." Pavel leaned back and studied Greg solemnly. "But my Grischa needs to be healthy and well-rested whether he's on duty or not. So perhaps you'll let me help."

Greg's eyebrows lifted. "Help, huh?" His mouth quirked up.

Pavel tsked. "Don't think dirty thoughts. Roll over."

Greg laughed. "Kinda conflicting instructions there, Pasha."

Pavel had to fight back a delighted smile at the sound of laughter. "On your stomach, Greg. I'm going to help you relax."

Greg grinned but obeyed, slipping to the side and onto his stomach, curling his arms under his head. "Okay, chief, what now?"

Pavel slapped his arm lightly. "I heard what my papa said to you before we left on the shuttle, you know. That sometimes you should let me take care of you."

"Mmm." Greg dropped his head to the side, looking back at Pavel.

Pavel pushed back the sheets until they hung from the foot of the bed. "You remember I was a runner at the Academy?"

"You remember my ass being right at the finish line that last big race you won?"

Pavel laughed. "I'll take that as a yes. Anyway, the team was very good about making sure we were properly warmed up and cooled down. I haven't done this before, really, but I can remember being on the receiving end enough to fake it. I think."

Greg's brow furrowed, but he seemed to get it as Pavel slipped onto his legs, straddling his hips. He squirmed a little bit under him, but relaxed.

Pavel sat against Greg's ass, looking thoughtfully at the body spread out under him. "It would help if we had some sort of ointment, or...wait." He slipped off of Greg and the bed, going to the duffel bag nearly emptied on the floor.

He dug into the side inside pocket and pulled out a familiar and mostly-used tube of lubricant.

"Just happened to bring that?" Greg asked from the bed, a smile in his voice.

Pavel blushed but moved back to the bed without a word.

He slipped back into place over Greg, resting against his ass. It was a struggle to get enough lubricant from the tube to coat his hands – and maybe it was a good thing they were going to be in his papa's small house, since sex this week would be limited to quick and quiet meetings whenever they could get them.

He smiled to himself faintly and rubbed his hands together to warm them. "Did they arrange a masseuse for you in security training?"

"Sometimes." Greg settled in to the pillow, resting his cheek on his folded hands. "They didn't really do the whole almost-naked straddling thing, though, so you must've got better ones than we did."

Pavel laughed. "I'm making up some of this as I go, actually."

"Good. I'd've started wondering why you didn't leave my ass for some good-looking massage guy back in school."

Pavel's smile faded, though he could hear the joke in Greg's voice. He answered seriously, honestly. "I never thought once about being with anyone but you."

Greg didn't answer.

Pavel sighed but settled in, slipping his warm, slick hands to Greg's shoulders and digging in to the muscles there firmly. "I wonder if you ever realized that about me. That I never thought about anyone the way I thought about you. It never even occurred to me."

Greg buried his face in the pillow, groaning softly as Pavel dug into the knots in his shoulders and back.

"I suppose," Pavel went on, feeling that it was important, "because of my age, a little, and because of my circumstances. I was there to learn, more than any of the other cadets. They made allowances to let me in, and it was made clear from the start that papa was only letting me go, and they were only letting me in, because I was hungry to learn and had the abilities they needed. I wasn't there with peers, I wasn't surrounded by friends. I never saw the other cadets as anything more than the crowd around me. Except, of course, when they made themselves into threats."

He smiled to himself faintly, slipping his hands lower, digging his palms in to follow the line of Greg's spine. "Even the nice ones, like Kirk and McCoy, were only nice strangers to me. But you...from the start you were different, and I'm not really sure why."

"We didn't meet in any kind of normal way," Greg pointed out, his voice low and gravely.

The massage was already working.

"No, but Kirk had come to my aid before. Not directly, he had never happened on a fight as it happened, but he had picked me up off the ground before and gotten me to help. I told you once before that it was the time I came to you to ask you to help me learn, the time you were so angry to see me hurt, when I realized I was attracted to you. But that I even thought to come to you, to seek out another student and ask his help...to think of you, as I did a lot. Even that was new."

"I'm glad it happened that way, even if you don't know why it did."

Pavel hummed his agreement. He shifted lower on Greg's legs, hands working the tension gathered at Greg's lower back.

"I think at first it was because of how you reacted. To me, and Lepinski, and the whole thing. Kirk...he took care of me as if it were an obligation. Because he was older and I was younger, and he was a fighter and I was obviously a scrawny child. He told me from the start that he would keep his eye out for me, that I might need him. Might need a protector. And you were different."

He shifted a little as he spoke – annoyed more than anything to find himself starting to react. To Greg under him, the slick warm muscles under his hands. This wasn't about getting off, but his body had this Pavlovian response to Greg.

He kept talking, hoping Greg wouldn't notice. "You were not cocky like Kirk. You were almost embarrassed, as if pulling Lepinski off of me was all you could give, and you were sorry for it. You spoke so uncertainly about yourself, but you were so incredibly strong to me. It made me see you from the start...not as another cadet, even a nice one. But as a friend."

He slipped his hand over the waistband of Greg's boxers almost regretfully. "I have never made friends easily. Outside of my village, the people who love me because I am one of them, I had never had a friend before you. You were amazing to me, Greg, from the very start."

Greg drew in a deep breath that Pavel could feel under his hands. "I'm not..."

Pavel spoke fast, firm. "Yes, you are. You were amazing then because I could see you as a friend, and I had never had that before. You are more amazing now, because I see now what your life was like before you found me. I see what you had to survive to become my friend."

Greg shook his head, breathing unsteadily.

"No one saw me behind my brain and my intelligence. No one saw you behind your size, your family." Pavel drew in a breath, his eyes burning again. "We found each other, Greg, don't you see that? You're the only one to ever take my mind off of learning. You're the only one who could have. And maybe back then I was the only one who could have seen into you. It seems absurd , but then what has always seemed obvious to me about you has always surprised everyone else, so maybe...maybe I'm right. Maybe this, us, was the only way things could have happened."

"Pasha."

"I'm sorry." Pavel stilled his hands at Greg's waist. "I'm sorry for saying it when you can't believe it yet, but I have to. You have to hear it, because you heard too many bad things for too long. You are wonderful to me. Perfect. I would change your family but I would never change you, my Grischa. _Moyo chudo._"

"Pasha..."

Pavel had to fight to stop his jumble of words. He drew in a breath, let it out slowly.

Greg shifted under him, and Pavel lifted up enough for him to roll over onto his back. For a moment Greg just looked up at him, then he circled an oddly cautious hand around Pavel's hip.

"Would that be...okay? With you? If things were that way? I mean...if a guy like me is really the one you're meant to be with? Me, I went from this place and my family to _you_, and I still can't figure out what the fuck I did to deserve it. But you..."

Pavel gave him an uneven smile. "Me. I am an obsessive, strange little Russian genius. There have always been people practically lined up to despise me. You think I am a prize, and I try to be for you, but I will always count myself lucky that you want me so much."

Greg made a strange, muffled sound in his throat and hauled Pavel in, forcing him down and driving their mouths together desperately.

"God, I fucking love you," he growled against Pavel's mouth, driving in harder once the words were out.

Pavel melted into him, giving back as good as he got. Their legs twined together, and he was almost amused and almost relieved to find that the massage had stirred Greg up as much as Pavel.

Greg got his arms around Pavel and tensed, like he planned to roll them over, to cover Pavel with his body the way Pavel savored. But he hesitated, and pulled away, and his eyes were suddenly locked on Pavel's.

Something in them made Pavel flush, made his hips curl against Greg's. "What?"

Greg swallowed, but his voice was intense. "Fuck me."

Pavel stilled, utter shock making his response sharp. "What?"

"You heard me. I want...that's what I want."

"But..." God, there was no denying that his cock was instantly hard, and the idea of it made him a little weak-limbed. But Pavel had too good a memory and was feeling way too overprotective of Greg right then.

"But you don't...you've never..."

Greg's gaze stayed steady. "It doesn't hurt when I do it to you, right?"

Pavel might have laughed if the moment wasn't so serious. "No. Of course not, but...I remember what you said, what happened..."

"Pasha." Greg's throat worked. His cheeks flushed pink, but his eyes held. "When it's me...when I'm fucking you, it makes me feel like you're mine, like nothing can ever take you away from me. Like everything is fucking perfect because I've got you. I know, at least I can figure, that the first time I did something like that with some asshole I didn't even know, that was wrong, and it's not always like that. Not if you do it right."

Pavel swallowed. He nodded. "But..."

"I want...I want to belong to you. Tonight, right now, I want you to...to feel that. To know that nobody and nothing's ever gonna take me away if you don't want it. And I want to know how it feels to be on the other side."

Pavel studied him, wondering if that last part wasn't closer to the truth. Maybe more than anything Greg wanted to feel what it was like to belong to someone who loved him and would take care of him.

But there was a fear there, a doubt. Maybe this was some sort of penance for Greg, even unconsciously. Some kind of punishment. He spoke so tersely about that time in his past that he had let a man fuck him, and when Greg was terse it meant he was hiding whole oceans of feelings.

Then again, if it was some sort of punishment, Pavel only had to do it right, to take care and go slowly and make sure there wasn't any kind of pain in it.

He nodded after a moment. "If you're sure."

Greg's eyes locked onto his, no doubt in them. "I'm sure." He started to roll over onto his stomach again.

Pavel stopped him with a hand. "Wait." He licked his lips to wet them, looking Greg over. It was decided, it was happening, and he was shocked at the sudden protective, possessive heat that drove up inside of him. "We're going to do this my way."

Surprise and heat warred with each other in Greg's face, and he sank back on his back.

Pavel's hands were still coated in lubricant from the massage, so he was careful not to touch Greg as he slipped down his, nudging them apart to crouch between them.

Greg watched him, quiet now as the first snakes of apprehension seemed to pass over him.

"Trust me, _moyo chudo_." Pavel bent, kissing the curve of his hipbone, tracing a trail with his lips towards his ridged stomach.

Greg reached out, slipping a hand through Pavel's hair, burying his fingers in curls. Apprehension muted, if not silenced for good.

It was a start.

Pavel adored Greg's body, he really did. It was the most base, instinctual desire he thought he'd ever had before. The way he could watch Greg doing the most innocent thing and just _want_. He loved Greg's size, he loved the muscles he worked so hard to maintain. He loved the confidence Greg had in his body, confidence he didn't have over anything else in his life.

He loved the firm planes of Greg's chest and stomach. Loved that he couldn't get both his hands around one of Greg's biceps. He loved his legs, his ass – the man could fill a pair of track pants, and did, so often it was making Pavel rather insatiable – and he loved, in that base, instinctive way, Greg's cock.

Bigger and broader than Pavel's, like everything else about Greg. Thick and hard, flushed a deep red, and when Pavel pulled Greg's boxers down enough to pull him free that instant throb of hunger wracked him deep.

He took the base of him in his slicked hand, glancing up the line of Greg's body. Maybe another reason he loved Greg's size so much was that when he had it all under his control like he did right then, when Greg was shuddering and bracing from anticipation of what Pavel might do, it felt powerful in a way that only flying the Enterprise had compared to so far.

He bit back a wicked smile and bent low again, focusing on his task.

The feel of Greg hard and smooth under his hand, the hot and bitter and addictive taste of him, the breathless panting growling noises he made...Pavel thought now and then that if he dragged this act out long enough he could make himself come without ever being touched. It was still on his mental list of fun experiments to try when they had a day off together.

But now was not that time. He had a mission here.

He waited until Greg was leaking and rock-hard in his mouth before he slipped his other hand down, trailed his slick fingertips up and down in a gentle line.

Greg jumped a little, but he didn't tense. His cock throbbed under Pavel's hand, and his fingers clenched a little before sliding out of his hair.

Pavel shut his eyes, tasting and touching, savoring the softly repeated 'fuck' and 'Pasha' that dropped from Greg's mouth again and again.

He had a finger inside Greg before he seemed to even realize. Only the crook of that finger, the search and discovery of his prostate, seemed to get through Greg's pleasured haze.

"Jesus!" Greg's fists seized on the sheets.

Pavel smiled around his cock but didn't slow, didn't give either of them time to think. He worked his mouth over Greg's cock, worked his tongue in every wicked way he had ever learned that Greg liked. And he pushed his finger in deeper, worked him open slowly, cautiously.

This was a first for Pavel, too. Luckily he had weeks of experience on Greg when it came to opening a body up, thanks to his own thorough experiments on himself back before Greg had finally agreed to fuck him. It was only a little different, doing it to a body that wasn't his own, but easier.

He worked in a second finger, and slowly a third, without Greg tensing or losing his painfully hard erection. He angled and drove in deep so that he was stroking over Greg's prostate almost constantly.

"Pasha!" Greg finally, desperately, gave that whimpered gasp that served as a warning.

But Pavel didn't need warning. He was ready, hungry, working his mouth that much faster over Greg, clamping his lips that much tighter around his flesh.

Greg came with a strangled shout, arching up off the bed and into Pavel's eager mouth. The bed creaked and complained under them, not built, apparently, for the current activity.

Pavel wondered even as he swallowed Greg down, worked every bit of fluid from him, if they could hear it downstairs. He wondered if that woman behind the counter was making another scandalized call to her pregnant daughter.

The thought made him laugh, or at least made his throat vibrate around Greg's flesh, and he was rewarded with a pained, broken groan from the head of the bed.

Pavel forgot the woman downstairs, making careful work out of licking Greg's cock clean. He made sure to keep his finger where they were, buried deep, sliding in and out carefully so Greg got as used to the feeling as he could.

Greg sagged and panted for air under him, groaning when the ministrations got to be too much.

Pavel slipped off of him then, licking his swollen lips and swallowing to coat his throat – he loved the act of taking Greg in his mouth, but he needed to work on stamina. Maybe there were some sort of jaw and throat exercises a person could do, or...

He made a mental note to ask Gaila when he got back to the ship. Or Kirk, possibly. McCoy seemed like he would be a mouthful.

Another laugh rose up in his throat, but he pushed it down. He had important things to do, and the last thing he wanted was for Greg to think he was laughing at him in some way.

He looked up at Greg then, smiling at his closed eyes and slack, dazed face. "See, I told you to trust me."

Greg laughed, flushed and lax. "If 'trust me' means 'let me give you a hummer that'll make you see spots' I'll trust you any damned time you want."

Pavel giggled, dropping his face to Greg's stomach to muffle it. He didn't miss the shudder in Greg's body when his still-probing fingers caught his prostate again, and he looked up once more. "Is this...?"

Greg hummed, eyes still closed, and shifted a little uncertainly. "It's...weird, a little, isn't it? Feels weird, but...yeah. It's okay."

Pavel smiled, remembering his own first time trying out his own fingers. The way he had felt like he'd been lied to about sex altogether for the first few strange, invasive minutes. Some people, he knew, took to it better than others. But if Greg wasn't as affected by it as Pavel that was perfectly fine – Pavel didn't intend to make this switch anything like permanent.

Greg opened his eyes, looking down at him with a tired, crooked smile. "How do you want me?"

Pavel returned the smile. "Do you want the sappy answer or the practical one?"

Greg blushed and the grin stretched wider. "Let's stick with practical. There's been enough sap for one day."

"Roll over," Pavel said obediently, slipping his fingers free of Greg's body. "Wait..." He slipped up Greg's body and kissed him, quick and easy. "Okay. Now. Over. And get rid of the boxers. Honestly."

Greg grinned and obeyed, peeling off his boxers and rearranging himself on his stomach. He folded his hands under his head again, noticeably less tense than the first time he'd laid down for Pavel this way.

Pavel slipped back between his legs and found himself almost instantly distracted. Greg's back gleamed from the earlier massage, the thin coat of lubricant over his muscles that hadn't entirely rubbed into the sheets under him.

He slid his fingertips up the accentuated plane of muscles, tracing the lines of his back. "God, you are the sexiest man in the entire universe, I think."

Greg chuckled. "I think you're a little biased. Or insane. Either way."

"Hush, Grischa." Pavel's hand slipped down his side, dragging smoothly against slicked skin. "I am a genius, I don't need anyone's help confirming my opinions. Just agree with me."

"Oh, yeah, sure. Sorry, you're right. I'm the sexiest guy in the whole universe. You got it."

"Much better, if I choose to ignore the sarcasm in your voice." Pavel thought about it, seeing the profiled trace of a pleased smile on Greg's face. "I think this time I'll ignore it."

He tracked his fingers down, curving over the swell of Greg's deliciously muscled ass, and slipping between his cheeks again to find his opening.

Greg started to tense but only for a moment, as if he instantly talked himself out of feeling strange about the whole thing. He shut his eyes against the pillow, breathing steadily.

Pavel tried not to feel any misgivings, but it was intimidating being on this end. Being in control. He had focused more on the other side during his research.

Luckily it didn't take him long before instinct took over. It wasn't long before his easily-probing fingers and Greg's increasing soft sighs told him where no textbook could have that it was time to do this.

Pavel had never been inside of anyone before. He had come in Greg's mouth, in his hand, against his body, but never was it anything like this.

He had to work, had to squeeze some desperate last millimeters of lube out of the poor used-up tube they'd brought from the ship to ease his way that much more. Had to push into Greg's body just a little, then pause, then push in deeper. And it was like nothing else he had ever felt. The grip around his cock was fierce, almost painful. The heat of Greg's body, the way he felt shuddering under Pavel's body.

And when he sank in, when his hips were flush against Greg's ass and he couldn't have pushed in any deeper, he was shocked at the feeling of it. Not just the physical, the grip of heat, the pleasure wracking through him even still as he was. Not just that, but the mental feeling. The way he felt when he pushed his eyes open and looked down between them at where their bodies joined.

Or when he looked up at Greg's face, at the furrowed brow but tensionless mouth. The familiar, adored profile of the man he loved. The man he was inside of.

A voice in his head, loud and strong, voice one word when he looked down at Greg.

_Mine._

He wondered if that was what Greg meant when he said that being inside Pavel made Pavel belong to him. Was it a voice like that, or just this rising fierce devotion welling in his chest. This feeling that if they had done this the night before, and today had happened as it had, Pavel would have happily not stopped punching Greg's father until he was bloodied and limp.

Then Pavel started moving, starting to push out and thrust back in to Greg's firm, amazing body, and he didn't think about that or anything else for a long, long time.

* * *

The silence around the transporter pad was deceptive. But Pavel didn't realize it until they got themselves situated and Greg hauled their duffel over his shoulder, and they stepped from the warm building into the cold air that would take them to the shuttle.

"_Dabro pazhalavat!_" came the near-roar the moment the doors opened.

Pavel blinked at the crowd of red-faced, familiar bodies, and found himself beaming almost instantly. His papa said he would keep this second return quiet. But then, it was his papa, after all.

"Pasha! Gregor! Finally!"

Speaking of Papa, suddenly he was right there at the door, sweeping his arm around Greg's shoulders and steering him instantly down into the mass of people. The duffel was taken from him instantly, of course, and Papa took him directly to the greeting handshake of Pavel Vladimirov, one of his oldest friends.

Pavel blinked to realize he had been left behind, but there was Nikolai and Irina Viktorovka and a hundred other welcoming faces calling to him.

The mass managed to drag itself to the shuttle somehow, and before Pavel had said hello to everyone who wanted to say hello (and who seemed to forget that just yesterday they had done all of this already) the shuttle was pulling to halt and half of Ishevsk stood waiting to greet the half on the shuttle.

He hadn't warned Greg suitably, Pavel realized with nothing less than a laugh. He had told him the party would be today, but he hadn't warned him what that would mean.

His eyes caught, as he was being dragged from the shuttle and a glass of cider was pushed into his hand, on a sign being held above someone's head. Of the wording on that sign.

He looked around instantly, finally spotting Greg still with Papa. He made his way through the crowd to them, taking Greg's arm before anything could distract him.

"Hey! This is wild!" Greg was already pink-cheeked from the cold and his cider, and maybe something else under it all.

Pavel pointed out at the back of the small crowd, at the wilting sign. "In case you wanted to know what your name looks like in Cyrillic. You are the very top line."

Greg squinted out at the sign, and surprise made his eyes widen. He turned an already darker blush to Pavel. "That's...really? What does it say?"

Pavel rolled his eyes. "'Gregor and Pavel, heroes of Ishevsk.' As dramatic as always."

Greg stared at that sign, and didn't seem to be bothered by the dramatics.

A hand landed heavy on Pavel's shoulder, and he knew it was Papa before the voice spoke in his ear.

"Your message, my Pasha. I got the feeling Gregor might need a proper welcome home."

Pavel turned instantly, jumping into Papa's arms and thinking suddenly, absurdly, that Greg was the only person in the universe who made him feel as safe as his own papa's hugs did. "Thank you," he whispered against Papa's beard.

Papa pulled away and held him out at arms' length, studying him with his usual focus – he said that Pavel's brain was miraculous, but Pavel knew for a fact that Papa's mind caught absolutely everything, and held on to it.

"This was not easy, then?"

"Easy?" Pavel wanted to cry, instant and sudden. He wanted to crawl back into his papa's solid hug and sob and demand to know how people could be so cruel to the ones they were supposed to love.

Perhaps later he would. It wouldn't be the first time the mysteries of the world made him beg his papa for understanding. Or maybe he would let this week go by as happily as he could, and save his angry tears for Hikaru and Nyota. They understood human nature better than he did, and talking to them about this might help them see even more clearly why Pavel adored Greg as fiercely as he did.

"Not easy," he said almost absently. "Horrible. But it doesn't matter, not right now."

He looked out at the crowd, watching Greg's study of that sign. The amazed smile on his face. Watching as it turned to a sheepish grin as Pavel Vladimirov came up and slapped his back, pushing at his forgotten drink in admonishment.

He watched Greg drink, watched him grin and talk with Pavel Vladimirov, and then Pavel's wife Anna as she joined them. He watched Greg smiling as he was welcomed home by Pavel's small, ragged little village family.

"_That_ is what matters now." And he knew without looking back that his papa agreed.

Papa always knew, somehow.


	11. Chapter 11

_Author's Note: I took some requests on LJ for a quick one-shot, and people wanted ridiculously sappy Greg/Pavel fluff. And that is what this is. It is ridiculously, irredeemably sappy fluff. This is your first and last warning: ain't nothing deep here. _

* * *

Living on a starship, especially serving such a long tour of duty so far from home, is a strange way to serve in a uniform.

It can't just be a job, because it's life. It's what a person wakes up to and goes to sleep around. There isn't a person in sight who isn't a fellow officer. Not a place to eat that isn't a mess hall. There's no commute home at the end of the day. No friend or family to go hang out with. No chance to switch the job off.

There's only this, the contained universe of the starship. A person has to create a family from the closest of the people they have chosen as their friends. Five years with the same people, living a job, with only rare and brief chances to escape, means that if a person can't find a family around them, they'll go pretty frigging crazy.

Which, Jim Kirk can't help but think, doesn't _excuse _the conversation he's in the middle of. But it does _explain _it.

Because when a bunch of idiots in uniform are the only ones each other has to talk to, sometimes they have to talk about the stuff big tough guys aren't supposed to talk about.

Sometimes it's even kind of fun.

"So what do ye think, Spock?"

Jim focuses in on the conversation fast when his first officer gets called out. He exchanges a quick grin with Hikaru before leaning back in his chair and gesturing to Spock grandly. "Yes, by all means. Tell us what you think."

Spock, of course, doesn't rise to the bait. He sits as straight-spined as ever, holding whatever probably-nonalcoholic thing he's drinking in a tight grasp.

He looks at Scotty, who first asked him the question, before raising an eyebrow at Jim and Hikaru. "You're asking my opinion about...?"

"Love, man!" Jim smacks the table between he and Spock with a sound rap. He can barely contain his glee, ignoring his beer to watch the ever-fascinating play of Spock's eyebrows. "Poetry and flowers and passion, Spock. Surely you've got some kind of opinion on the matter?"

Spock sighs, small and contained. "Every time your plans for an evening off involve alcohol, I tell myself not to bother coming. And yet here I am, time and again, suffering the same sort of drivel over and over."

"Illogical bastard," Jim agrees cheerfully. "But that's no answer."

"I have no opinion about the concept of love, captain."

Jim shoots him a stern look.

Spock's eyebrow twitches. "Jim."

Jim grins.

"You think if we asked Nyota she'd tell us otherwise?" Hikaru asks at Jim's side.

Jim perks up and looks around the mess instantly, but of course she isn't around. Most of the time Nyota excuses herself from the not-quite-weekly gab sessions. She claims that these sorts of beer-and-talk gatherings are meant to be shared among men. (Besides, she and Gaila and Rand and their little gal pals all do the same thing, somewhere on the ship that Jim hasn't managed to find and plant listening devices in yet.)

Pavel rarely comes to these sorts of evenings, and Bones usually doesn't force himself out of sickbay in time, so they're rarely a full group as it is.

"Nyota," Spock replies in that bland none-of-your-business voice he's so good at, "wouldn't tell you a thing."

Which is true, and frustrating to many a crewmember who want first-hand gossip about the habits of amorous Vulcans.

Hikaru smiles back innocently, as if he knows something Spock doesn't.

The door slides open behind Jim's back and heavy footsteps thump in.

Jim leans back and twists to see the intruder – Len trudges pretty hard sometimes at the end of a shift. But it isn't Len.

"Hey! Cupcake!" Jim grins over his disappointment and lofts his beer in greeting.

Greg Harris stops halfway through the doorway, looking surprised. He can be way too serious sometimes, especially about the whole stand-at-attention-and-salute-the-captain part of his job. But Jim flinging around a beer bottle must be enough to keep him contained, because he doesn't snap to attention.

He just flashes a small smile at the group of them. "Sorry, didn't think anybody'd be in here this late. Just came by for some..." He gestures vaguely towards the replimat in the corner.

"What, you've got somewhere to rush off to?" Jim grins. "Oh, no, unlike most of us pathetic bastards you've got some_one_."

Greg shrugs and moves around the table. "Pasha's doing some kinda research, some entropy black-hole something or other. I dunno, but he's been at it for days and I don't figure he's gonna slow down anytime soon."

"So you can hang out!"

Greg shoots him a faintly baffled look and moves to the replimat. "Nah, he forgets to eat when he gets all research-guy like this. I'm gonna grab him some food and-"

"Cupcake." Jim sets his beer on the table and pushes up from the bench, moving around to the replimat.

"We're off duty right now, so I don't want you to think of this as an order." He moves up to Greg, slinging an arm up and around that broad, hard shoulder, and reaches out to cancel the order he'd been typing in.

He reqs a couple more bottles of beer instead, grinning up at his massive security officer. "But you're gonna sit down with the guys over here and take ten minutes to chill out away from the...er...significant other. Because we're guys, and that's what we do."

Greg blinks down at him, but there's a glint of amusement in his eyes.

Jim beams and grabs the bottles, slapping one into Greg's hand.

He and Greg have was can only be called a _colorful _history. They tried to beat the shit out of each other when they first met – though in hindsight Jim can admit that nowadays if some drunk idiot was going after Nyota in a bar he'd be right there with Greg ready to throw the first punch.

Jim tried to have Greg kicked out of Starfleet under the mistaken belief that the oversized lunkhead was terrorizing their youngest cadet. Greg helped Spock throw him off the ship and onto an oversized snowball, and dragged him around with a phaser pointed at him once he got back on board.

Jim got his revenge by all but making 'Cupcake' the guy's official name once Jim found himself captain and could get away with shit like that. But then Greg came around and saved their asses while Chekov bled nearly to death in a Klingon cell.

Jim threatened him when he found out that Greg and aforementioned Youngest Cadet were actually fucking and happy about it. But Greg proved himself, in school and on the ship, as never having a single bad intention towards Pavel.

A hell of a roller-coaster ride of a history, really, but it all came together hard when Jim and Greg used each other to get revenge on an untouchable pack of alien shitheads who had found it funny to corner and kick the ass of said Youngest Officer on Jim's ship.

No one fucks with Jim's crew, especially not his main crew. Especially not the baby, who Jim has come to really _like. _And no one fucks around with Greg Harris's man, apparently. So they managed to work together to get their revenge, with Starfleet never the wiser.

Jim has accepted that Greg is absolutely devoted to his little Pasha, and Greg has come to trust his captain to fight like a mama bear to protect his crew.

These days, though they don't socialize much and have next to nothing in common, Jim regards Greg as a friend. One of the few off-bridge crew that he greets by first name and allows himself some informality with.

Greg is still a little shoulders-back-eyes-forward with Jim, still working on separating Jim from The Captain, but it's getting better.

That shows now in the way he accepts the beer Jim smacks into his palm. He looks down at Jim with some bemusement and tosses off a casual salute.

"Yes, sir, Captain Kirk, sir."

Jim grins and pushes against his massive back, nudging him towards the table.

Hikaru smiles and lifts his mostly-empty bottle in greeting. Spock nods to acknowledge the man, and Scotty flashes a grin and echoes Hikaru's bottle-salute.

Jim pushes Greg – at least Greg lets himself get pushed – down on the long bench and returns to his own seat.

"Okay, boys. Now we've got someone who actually has some current experience with the topic of choice. One who'll actually talk about it, anyway," he adds with a mock-glower Spock's way.

Spock gazes back, expressionless, one eyebrow just the slightest bit tilted.

Jim grins.

"Er, what's the topic of choice?"

"Love," Hikaru answers Greg, drawing the word out with a flourish of a sigh at the end, barely containing his smirk.

Greg blinks. "You're shitting me."

"Nope." Jim nudges his arm. "We're not all as lucky as you and your genius little boyfriend, pal. Some of us have to swallow our pride every now and then and turn into women and talk this shit out."

"Some of 'us'?" Greg answers with a look back at Jim.

Jim waves his hand, but doesn't answer. He and Bones and their...thing...it goes back to the Academy. It's no secret, though it's nothing they really talk about openly.

And it's good. It really is.

Len is his best friend, a better friend than a cocky, antisocial shit like Jim ever figured he'd have. He's sexy as all hell when he wants to be, he's the funniest guy Jim knows when he breaks out of his bitter-divorcee moods, and he's fucking brilliant at what he does.

But, and here's where the whole conversation tonight started, he isn't sure it's _love,_ with a capital L and a heart for the o. He knows it's great, and it's hot, and he'd feel like shit if anything ever broke it up, but he doesn't know it's the ultimate Thing.

How the hell is he supposed to know? How does anyone?

It's questions like that – asked hypothetically because Jim likes to imagine a few people on his crew don't already know who he's fucking – that got them going tonight.

Spock is probably in love with Nyota, but he won't talk about it. The only other couple Jim knows on the ship who have lasted longer than a month are Greg and Pavel.

So.

He looks back at Greg with a grand gesture, and speaks more cavalierly than he feels. "The floor is yours, Cupcake. Teach us miserable bastards about love."

Greg turns a light shade of red. "Come on, sir, you're not..." He looks around, from Hikaru's wicked grin to Scotty's distant interest and Spock's complete neutrality. "The hell do you want me to say? I don't know nothing more than anybody else."

"Don't be modest, Greg." Hikaru waves his bottle in a vague gesture towards the door. "You've got the smartest kid in the universe mooning after you like a puppy, right? Gotta be doing something right."

"Oh yeah?" Greg's eyes go to Hikaru as if there's some escape there. "Pasha told me the other day that you were ragging on him about us. Said we were ridiculous or something."

Hikaru shrugs, looking sheepish. "You've got to understand, it's really, really fun to give him crap."

Jim nods his agreement.

Greg just stares at Hikaru. "I wasn't gonna say nothing, since I know he doesn't listen to that kind of shit. But since you've got me here talking about it...what the fuck?"

Hikaru sets his beer down and raises his hands. "Peace, Greg. I was just giving him a hard time."

Greg keeps staring.

"Okay, put the death eyes away. Jeez. All I said was that any two normal people would have gotten sick of each other by now." He gets to his feet, moving to the replimat and grabbing another beer. "You know I'm your biggest fan, right, you two together? So you don't get to kill me for teasing him."

"Wasn't planning on it," Greg answers. "But you're his best friend and he overthinks shit too much."

Hikaru looks back in surprise. "You think he actually listened to me?"

Greg shrugs. "Not that he says anything about. But he hears everything, and he doesn't forget a damned thing, and..."

"Huh."

Jim can't help but stare at Hikaru himself.

Guys go after each other about everything. That's understood. But there's something for every guy that is off limits when it comes to callous guy-teasing.

For Jim it's his dad. For Len it's his daughter. Jim isn't sure what Sulu's or Scott's is, he's never hit that point with them. Spock he doesn't even try to reach that line with. He knows it's safe to tease him about Nyota, so he pretty much sticks with that.

He's never seen Pavel hit that line – he seems to be a pretty all-around happy kid with not too many shadows in his past. He figures if anyone is ever stupid enough to bring up the transporter accident with Spock's mom, that'd cross a line. But guys, as dumb as they usually are, aren't cruel.

Still, Jim's inclined to think that as much shit as Pavel and Greg have gone through, their relationship might be close to being off-limits. Not the day-to-day aspects – and come on, the tiny little Russian kid and Cupcake? That's too much material to go to waste – but the general feasibility of it.

The two of them fought pretty hard to be where they are, and Jim knows better than to mess with that.

He's surprised that Hikaru of all people might have crossed that line.

Hikaru catches his gaze and sighs as he sits back down. "It wasn't anything deep, Greg. It's not like I told him I thought you should have broken up by now. Just...come on, it's been _years. _You should at least be_ used_ to each other."

"The hell does that even mean?" Greg asks, sharp but not dangerous. Yet.

"I don't...okay, like...there's this period in a relationship where everything is hearts and flowers, right, and there's pet names and googly eyes and you make everyone around you sick." Hikaru shrugs, taking a drink. "That phase isn't supposed to last, and the fact that you two are still right there after so long is...weird. That's all."

Greg doesn't answer, shaking his head and taking a drink.

Jim and Bones never had that giggly honeymoon phase. Then again, they never really had any set starting point on their relationship. They were friends who fucked and had been that way from pretty much the start.

They never talked about the bigger picture. They both had their own quarters, even if one sat empty on almost any given night. They cared about each other, worried, took care of each other, but that felt like the friendship side of things more than the lust side.

Len would have been the first to say that the poetry-and-flowers phase was ridiculous, a youthful ideal of what a relationship should be and not a realistic view of what love actually is.

"You're supposed to settle in to each other," Hikaru goes on after a minute. For the first time he looks a little awkward. "That's what I've always thought. I mean, a million couples never make it through that first phase, and the ones who do are the only ones who really make it. You know? My folks..." He hesitates.

There's that moment, Jim sees it in Hikaru's eyes, when things go from general vague conversation to something-that's-actually-meaningful-to-me.

As guys they have two choices – wave him off and steer the conversation in another direction, or roll up their sleeves and go with it.

He exchanges a glance with Scotty, shrugs.

Scott leans over a nudges his benchmate. "What about them, then?"

Hikaru relaxes a little, but goes on. "My folks have been together as long as any couple I've ever known. They've got six kids, a whole history together. And...you know, they're so damned comfortable with each other that it's like they don't even have to acknowledge the other one's there. They're as vital and as..._expected_ to each other as oxygen or gravity, you know?"

Jim shrugs. That's one thing he doesn't know. Not the kind of thing he witnessed as a kid.

Hikaru smiles to himself, his voice going softer. "Sometimes dad will look around and his eyes pass over mom like she's just another chair in the room. Like she's so familiar and so always-there that he just doesn't have to take much notice. But you just _know _that if he ever looked around and didn't see her where she should be, the whole place would crumble around him."

He looks around then, sheepish. "That's always been what I figured love would look like."

There's a beat, a silence. Scott's eyes are distant, somewhere in his own memories. Jim doesn't have his own cheerful memories to think about, but he can at least admit that it sounds nice, the way Hikaru describes it. It sounds peaceful, like something he'd want to grow old with.

And it doesn't have much in common with the sparkling new and perky relationships most people fall into at first. The kind of relationship that Hikaru thinks Greg and Pavel are stuck in.

Hikaru shrugs after a moment. "Look, I really was just teasing Pavel the other day. If you think he took me seriously at all I'll be the first one to talk some sense into him." He looks past Jim suddenly, a crooked grin touching his face. "Though I doubt I'll have to."

Jim glances back and sees none other than Pavel Chekov hovering in the doorway to the mess.

The kid looks the way he typically looks in the middle of some research bender. His curls are wild, a shade too long and disheveled. He seems pale, with shadows under his eye, and he radiates nervous energy.

He'd rather be somewhere with books and data padds in his hands, that's clear. Len gets that exact same delayed-wildness when he's forced away from researching some cure or the biology of some species he hasn't done much work with before.

Jim's only surprised that he's here at all. He's known Pavel to go hours without so much as looking up from a display, much less going out in search of someone or something.

He almost waves Pavel in, but Greg's voice sidetracks him.

Greg hasn't looked back, doesn't notice Hikaru's attention being caught by the new arrival. "You think there's some truth in it, though. What you said to him. Don't you?"

Hikaru hesitates, looking from Pavel back to Greg. "Only the truth as I just said it – that you guys don't look the way I always thought that...that love would look." His eyes flash over to Pavel, sheepish.

Jim glances back, sees a furrow of annoyance carving into Pavel's face. Like Len, Pavel gets temperamental when he's in the middle of some cram-session.

"Huh. Well, I guess you're just gonna have to learn to deal with that," Greg says, drawing a swallow from his beer bottle before pointing at Hikaru with it still tight in his hand. "If Pasha wants to be with someone who's gonna start seeing him as part of the furniture, he ain't gonna have much luck with me."

"Yeah?" Hikaru looks back at Greg. He must know that Greg is unaware of his audience, but with the slightest quirk of a smile he encourages him anyway. "Why's that?"

Greg blinks. "Why? Have you _met _him?"

"Pavel? I've seen him around, sure." Hikaru shrugs with a smile.

"Well..." Greg looks over at Jim. "Okay, you wanted to know my opinion about love? I couldn't tell you. I'm shit with talking about things. I don't have the kind of words someone like Hikaru's got, or someone like Pasha. But I do know that if you really think there's just one right way to love somebody, you're crazy."

Jim glances back at Pavel. He's come in a few steps, but that annoyed line in his face is still deep, and his eyes are dark on Hikaru.

Greg frowns when no one answers.

"Okay, hell. You figure me and Pasha are ridiculous because we're not sick of each other yet, is that it? Cause we're not...what'd you say? Settled in to each other, or whatever." He hesitates, tapping the bottom of the beer against the table thoughtfully. "When I go down after a shift and I walk in to my quarters and he's there...it doesn't ever get old or feel settled or anything like that because it's like something different about him hits me every damn day."

Jim bites back a smile and keeps from looking back at their annoyed spectator. He nudges Greg in encouragement. "Really? Like what?"

"Like...shit." Greg sighs, fidgeting with the bottle.

Jim has a pretty good sense that a guy like Greg Harris must have to fight a lifetime of conditioning to talk the way he's talking now. Over-sized Midwestern farmboys aren't anything new to cocky Iowa-raised Jim Kirk. He knows how tough these guys are taught to be.

Greg goes on, though. Brave in a way he doesn't have to be in his job.

"Sometimes I look at him and my brain goes...'this guy _loves _you.' And I don't know how the hell I'll ever get over _that_. Who the fuck am I, you know? This big dumb shithead who never got nothing right until just a few years ago. He loves me, and I know it, and I don't have to doubt it or worry about it going away if he meets some genius nerd guy who might fit him better. I _know _it isn't going anywhere, even if sometimes I don't know why. And it's fucking amazing, knowing that. I never been confident in anything in my whole dumb life the way I'm confident about him."

Greg shrugs, shooting Jim a look. "But just when I start getting used to that whole idea I'll see him again the next day and it'll be 'this guy is so fucking beautiful', and then I gotta deal with that for a while. And then it's that he's so fucking smart, or the way he talks – not his accent or anything, I mean the way he's always so _at_ people. Like he knows they think he oughtta apologize or feel inferior because he's too young or too smart or whatever, but instead he just shows 'em up and save their asses."

Jim looks back, unable to help himself.

The furrow is out of Pavel's face by then. His eyes are on the back of Greg's head, his mouth curled up softly.

Greg's fingertips curl in absent patterns on the table. "So sometimes I'm just amazed by that, and then I'll think about how good he is, how he cares about everything so damned much, about how he shared his dad and his mom and his whole town with me just because I needed...something. Whatever. And I think about that for a while."

Pavel's smile shifts, but his eyes are still bright.

Jim looks away from him, feeling oddly like he's spying on a private moment.

Greg's throat works. "Eventually it comes right back around to me thinking how he actually loves _me_, on top of all that other stuff, and it all kinda starts again from square one."

He clears his throat as his voice goes a little too soft for comfort. "So, hell. If I grin a little big every time I see him, or if I get a little goofy waking up with him there, and if I still want to bring him little presents or sit there with him while he's talking Russian in some message to his dad that I don't understand a word of...or if I wanna come down here and get him some pirogies even if it means I gotta take a damn hour listening to the computer over and over again so I know how to say the word 'pirogi' right, then oh fucking well. If that's ridiculous than I guess ridiculous works pretty good for us."

He looks down at his hands, at the bottle of beer and the table. His cheeks are touched with color but he doesn't seem all that embarrassed by the whole thing.

He looks over at Hikaru after a moment. "So. You know. Maybe it's 'cause I'm not all that good at learning things, and he's got a thousand other things to focus on. But it doesn't look like either of us is gonna get used to how things are enough to take it for granted. Frankly, man, if you're gonna call us out for doing things wrong than I can't do anything to shut you up, but you're shit out of luck if you think either of us is gonna actually listen to you."

Hikaru meets his eyes for a moment across the table, and he smiles. There's a glint in his eyes, like relief, maybe.

Jim knows that as protective as he himself is about their teenage navigator, Hikaru is a hundred times worse. Maybe his remarks to Pavel that started this whole thing were his way of feeling them out, of testing how things were settling in around the two of them.

Jim knows as well as anyone that even the most intense kind of love can fizzle out fast when its left to nothing but the bland routine of day to day life.

"I suppose there's no one right way to settle down with someone," Hikaru concedes after a moment.

"Let me tell you, man. There's sure as hell a wrong way." Greg sits back, swallowing from his beer. "My folks don't even like each other, much less love. Only time they talk is to yell, and only time they touch is when they're throwing each other around. So I don't know much about the right way, but I've seen it wrong, and I don't care what you say, me and Pasha ain't there."

He grins after a moment, as if he realizes he's successfully shut them and their idiot blathering up. "Besides, Pasha is a genius. And hell, I have to have caught a little bit of second-hand genius by now, hanging around him so much, so. What's the chance the two of us'd get anything wrong?"

"My genius," Pavel says suddenly, breaking his long silence, "is not a communicable disease, Grischa."

Greg looks back, surprised and suddenly more red-faced than he was. "Christ. You gotta stop sneaking up on me like that."

Pavel moves up, coming in behind Greg and slipping his slender long-fingered hands over Greg's shoulders. He looks over Greg's head at Hikaru.

The weariness is out of his eyes. The drawn, wild look is gone, and there's nothing there but a happy sort of peace.

"I hope you're satisfied," he says to Hikaru lightly.

Hikaru grins, looking back at Greg. "Did he tell you what he said to me the day I was giving him crap about you?"

Greg leans back against Pavel, like it's instinct to want to be closer. "Nope."

"Pretty much the same thing you just said," Hikaru reports with a grin. "And I don't care. Look at you two ridiculous bastards."

Pavel laughs quietly, squeezing Greg's shoulders.

Greg sets his beer down, rolling his eyes and pushing out of his chair. "Jealous," he throws back.

Pavel beams at him. "I said that, too, actually."

"See? I caught your genius. Probably just a mild case, but..." Greg slings his arm around Pavel. "The hell are you doing down here, anyway? I know you don't want to leave your work."

"You were gone." Pavel shrugs, letting Greg lead him around to the replimat. "I noticed. You were coming to get me food?"

"Still am. And then you're only gonna read a couple more hours before I make your ass go to bed."

It's interesting to Jim that the two of them seem to have forgotten the conversation they just walked away from, and the group of people they've left behind.

It's interesting how much much bigger Greg smiled when he saw Pavel than he smiled at any of them before he arrived. How Pavel softened listening to Greg, and pushed himself through his genius-at-work haze.

How they stand there, very much a part of each other, as Greg makes Pavel laugh by deliberately mispronouncing the word 'pirogi' into the replimat control just so Pavel can give him an impromptu lesson, and Pavel does so as if it's at least as fascinating as the work he left behind.

Talking about something like love is a useless fucking thing to do. Jim can listen and nod and say 'that sounds right' or 'that feels wrong' when someone's describing their view of it, or else he can take one look at Greg's pink cheeks and unselfconscious grin, and Pavel's bright, contented eyes as he leans back against Greg and watches the replimat glow, and he can know.

_Yeah. That's it._

So maybe Greg's right. Maybe there is no good way to have a conversation about something like love, because for every person around him it's going to be entirely different.

Seems like everyone gets to choose for themselves exactly what love feels like and how it shows itself. Whether it's Hikaru's parents' quiet adoration or Greg and Pavel's more blatant variety. Or Spock's silence, or Nyota's discretion.

Maybe it's in the way Jim can't help but stay up long hours into the night whenever Len is caught in his own obsessive modes. Maybe the way Len is still somehow there for Jim even though he knows every stupid, cocky, overconfident shithead move Jim has ever pulled. Maybe that Len has stuck by him longer and closer than anyone in Jim's life, and Jim lets him stick, and sticks to Len just as hard, when in every other relationship he's ever had Jim always leaves tracks on the ground getting away the moment he feels like he's in too deep.

There doesn't seem to be much use in talking about it, if that's the case. It seems like the only thing that will help Jim figure his shit out is going back to his quarters to see if Len's off shift yet. To hang around his best friend and see what exactly about Len strikes him as most remarkable today, as opposed to yesterday, or tomorrow.

Greg and Pavel have make their way out the door while Jim thinks about it, and around him the conversation switches to a new topic, something sciencey to reclaim the attention of the Vulcan and the Engineer who could give a damn for talking about love.

Jim isn't done with the subject, though. His profs always thought of him as a slacker, but he hates leaving a theory half-formed.

The only recourse for him is to push out of his chair, tell the other guys good night, and go to his quarters to do his own personal research on the whole thing.

So that's what he does.


	12. Chapter 12

Title: My Last Faith Part One

Summary: Greg's made his plans, asked advice, bought a ring, and almost overcome his nerves. The only thing standing in his way now is an entire planet, a feral humanoid species of aliens, and a strange atmosphere that renders the Enterprise useless.

* * *

When Pavel was fifteen years old, the youngest cadet in Starfleet and anxious to prove himself, having an internal alarm clock was a good thing.

It meant that he never missed a class, he never failed to wake up in time for a last-minute study session before an exam. On weekends it helped him get up early enough to run a few miles before the obscene California sun came up to glare full blast on his pale and fragile Russian body.

But Pavel wasn't in the academy anymore, there was no sunlight on a ship, and sometimes he just wanted to sleep in, damn it all.

His internal alarm clock wasn't sophisticated enough to come with a snooze button, and more often than not he would blink his eyes open into darkness and have nowhere to be for hours yet. It got annoying, especially on off days after a long week when he really could have used more sleep.

Still, he couldn't help but reflect as he woke one dark, too-early morning, there were good things about it, too.

It was peaceful in the mornings, after all. No one looking to him for answers, no one ruffling his hair or pinching his cheek or smirking at his third attempt to make the computer register his commands.

The lights were dim, there was a closed door between him and the whole expectant universe. Nothing but warm sheets and his slowly awakening, sleep-heavy body, and soft snores rumbling in his ear.

Greg didn't have Pavel's issues waking up too early.

Greg had no problem with any sort of internal alarms. He slept until the moment the computer woke him up, and not an instant longer. Perhaps it was an instinct developed working in security, but Greg always woke up entirely from one breath to the next. No fog in his head, no confusion, no moments of semi-conscious sloth.

Pavel? He preferred a slow beginning to his mornings. He liked to wallow, to enjoy the comfort of bed. That was one of the good things about waking as early as he did – his quiet way of waking meant he didn't disturb Greg, and so Pavel didn't have to feel sheepish about his desire to wallow in Greg's body as much as he wallowed in the warmth and the sheets.

He liked to curl in as close as he could without jarring Greg, which meant hardly moving from whichever position he woke up in. Sometimes he ended up slipping back in to Greg, into his broad chest or firm back. Sometimes he only had to roll forward a little and he could bury his head against Greg's chest.

He wasn't entirely sure that it wasn't a little childish, wanting to press himself into Greg and spend a few long, peaceful minutes listening to him breathe. For three years now he had slept beside Greg more nights than not, he should have gotten used to it.

But, three years on, Pavel still woke up beside Greg and became oh so slowly aware of the source of the warmth soaking through him, and his over-full genius mind couldn't think anything more coherent than _mmmmm. _

Three years on, and his first and greatest instinct was still to wrap around Greg like he was an over-sized teddy bear.

This particular morning Greg was cooperating in his sleep – he was on his side, facing Pavel, close if not quite close enough to make Pavel happy.

It was easy enough for Pavel to slip back a few inches, to press carefully into the solid wall of Greg's chest without waking him up. He began many mornings just that way.

But Pavel could be a greedy little hedonist, and laying there wasn't enough that morning. He wanted more.

Greg must have woken up when Pavel was still trying to haul his arm up and wrap it around himself, because his hand twitched all at once and a low, instantly-awake chuckle rumbled in Pavel's ear.

Pavel tilted his head back in silent apology, but didn't stop lugging Greg's arm over him until it was placed just-so around Pavel's waist.

Happier then, he sank back and settled in to enjoy the few minutes left of another slow, easy morning.

Greg lay silent for almost a minute, but he wasn't wired for lazy mornings the way Pavel's was. He shifted behind Pavel, making the mattress dip just the slightest bit. His hand smoothed its way up Pavel's chest, the backs of his fingers rough and warm brushing across Pavel's skin.

Pavel made a low, content noise in his throat. He reached up and traced the curve of a thickly muscled bicep with idle fingertips. Greg's breath whispered across the back of his neck. Slow, even breaths as if he were about to fall asleep again, but his hand didn't stop its back and forth caress.

There were times when Pavel couldn't help but reflect on this whole thing. Three years of his life was an eternity, as young as he was. Some people lived decades before they found something like what he had with Greg. Some people never found it.

Some people lived their silly teenage years going on awkward first dates and having their hearts broken and never finding anything real. Pavel wasn't quite twenty yet, but he had this solid, happy, real thing with a man he adored, and he couldn't imagine how he'd gotten so lucky so young.

There were times that he wanted to go back to earth, track down an old bully named Matt Lepinski, and give him a big hug in thanks for trying to kick Pavel's face in when they were students.

His papa always said that everything happened for a reason. Papa would have said that the bullying and hatred must have happened so that Pavel could find love. Pavel himself didn't subscribe to that theory; he didn't like the idea that any sort of higher power could see a scared child being hurt as everything going according to plan.

So he didn't necessarily believe that Matt Lepinski tormented him so that he would find Greg.

What he did believe was that if he had to do it all over again and he knew the prize that waited for him, he would have endured Lepinski ten times over.

The warm brush of Greg's lips against the back of his neck drew a shiver out of Pavel. He pulled himself out of his own overactive mind, curling back as if he could somehow push himself even closer to Greg than he was.

Greg's arm tightened around him like Greg was having the same thoughts. His other arm pressed between Pavel and the mattress, slipping around Pavel, pulling him closer with both broad hands.

It sparked something inside Pavel that he never knew he had before he met Greg. Pavel didn't have a particularly hard life – the first taste of real abuse he ever knew was at the Academy, with Lepinski and others like him. But for some reason when Greg was on top of him or beside him, just surrounding him the way he was right then, it seemed to flare up some instinct inside Pavel that wanted to be held. Protected.

Maybe that was childish, too.

Then again, the fact that it usually made him hard didn't seem childish at all.

He smiled to himself as he tilted his head a little, silently directing Greg's mouth to go a little further up.

Greg's chuckle was low, his breath warm against Pavel's skin as his lips traced up to the spot behind Pavel's ear that always made him tingle and shiver.

Another good thing about waking up too early in the mornings? They had time before they had to think of getting out of bed.

Pavel trailed his fingers over the firm curve of Greg's forearm, thrilling silently at the strength that pulsed under Greg's skin.

His body was something that Pavel had adored about him from the first day they met. It seemed like a superficial thing, perhaps, but it wasn't. Greg's body said so much about him. It was a reflection of his personality, a reflection of all the things Pavel loved most about him. His strength wasn't from ego, hours a day in a gym just so he would look good.

His strength came from his training. His time spent in the gym was mostly practice, his sword lessons with Hikaru and defensive classes with his students. He did the mundane things, the weight-lifting and all that, but he did it to make himself stronger. He didn't care about muscle development. He didn't join in with the other security officers when they got into bragging sessions about how much they could bench.

His job was to be strong, and so he made sure he was strong. It was as simple as that.

Greg prided himself in his work, not his body, and it showed in a thousand ways. It showed in his movements, in the way he carried himself. People who focused on themselves, their appearance, seemed to be almost at war with themselves. There was an air of discontent around them, like a wall was built up between their minds and their bodies. It always showed.

Greg was more at home in his skin than anyone Pavel had ever seen. Greg knew his body, knew everything it was capable of. His years of training gave him this absolute confidence in every move he made. He knew exactly what he could do, and his body did it without resistance.

It was beautiful, really. It took Pavel a while to see it - as close as he was to Greg, he let himself get tricked by Greg's insecurities in other areas. He could see the self-consciousness in Greg's smiles and hear it in his halting words, and for a while he fooled himself into thinking that Greg was simply an insecure man.

But he trained with Greg. He watched him teach his classes. On days off he even went to the gym and just watched Greg practice. And he learned, slowly, that Greg could be absolutely breathtaking to watch.

There was no wasted movement about him. Nothing flashy in his training, nothing gaudy or needlessly graceful. Every step he took, every inch he moved, was deliberate. Every step was perfectly balanced, every gesture only what he needed it to be.

When Pavel watched Greg move, he understood why some cultures paid obscene amounts of money to watch trained men fighting each other. He understood for the first time in his life that someone could be as fascinating and as_ intricate_ physically as they could be mentally.

There were moments when he watched Greg, moments when every lesson crammed into his overactive brain would vanish and all he was left with was the blinding desire to trace his tongue up Greg's chest, to follow the trail left by a bead of sweat. Moments when he wanted to taste the salt of his damp skin, and hear Greg's steady breathing hitch in a way his workouts couldn't cause, and feel the twitch of those thick, strong lines of muscle under his lips and his fingers.

Before Greg, Pavel would have been dubious that feelings like that even existed.

Pavel had never been interested in anyone before Greg. He was sixteen when they met, after all, and he wasn't used to wasting his thoughts outside of a classroom.

He realized that there were things expected of every man: his father sometimes chuckled over how impossible his grandchildren would be, and Pavel realized that those nonexistent grandchildren were one more expectation that he would have to address one day.

Sixteen, as young as it was, was old enough to have had some sort of crushes on untouchable people. Pavel was old enough to want people, he just never did.

Not until he looked up from a gravel sidewalk and saw a gruff, dark-eyed stranger holding out a hand to him.

That was years ago. He was going to be twenty soon, and that was more than old enough to have let his eyes and his mind wander. But Pavel's brain was a stubborn thing, and he was convinced that the moment he first let himself feel interest in another person, his mind considered that matter to be settled. It stubbornly refused to so much as stir for anyone else.

No one was beautiful enough, handsome enough, smart or clever enough, to make him doubt his first choice. And Pavel was surrounded by the most beautiful and brilliant people in Starfleet. Maybe the universe.

Greg asked him once if it would be okay with Pavel, the idea that of everyone in the universe it might be Greg Harris that was meant to be with him.

Pavel couldn't have found enough words in Standard or Russian to answer the way he wanted to. If he knew how to say yes in a million languages, he would have still been answering the question months later, lying in that bed.

Hikaru could call them ridiculous all he wanted. Who in the universe, if given a choice, wouldn't pick what Pavel had?

Greg chuckled suddenly, soft in his ear.

Pavel smiled when he recognized the sound, the 'you're thinking too damned loud' chuckle. He let his fingertips trail across Greg's arm, back and forth, tilting his head back in silent request.

Greg leaned in without pause, his arms tightening around Pavel as his lips trailed in a slow, warm trail over his neck, to his jaw, and back the way he came until he was back at that spot right behind his ear that always made Pavel shudder.

Breathing a little faster, Pavel slipped back, wriggling his hips back until he could feel Greg, thick and hardening against his ass. With a smile and an uneven stutter of air he pushed back against him, shameless in his intent.

Greg gave a soft warning growl, but since Pavel had no intention of teasing he only arched closer.

Pajamas were a formality they said goodbye to years ago, and it only took a little artful circling of his hips until he could feel the press of Greg's cock against him, nudging between his cheeks.

Greg's breath was warm against his ear, unsteady, but his broad hand trailed down Pavel's stomach. He nudged forward, the smallest little movements of his body rocking his cock against Pavel's ass, nudging a little closer every time.

Pavel sometimes thought that if Greg had as much confidence in everything about himself as he had in his body, he would be dangerous. He felt more sure of it every day, as Greg's confidence in this thing between them got stronger and stronger.

There had been a learning curve for both of them when they first started sleeping together, but with every passing day Greg got more comfortable with this aspect of his physicality, with what to do and how far to push, with the fact that everything he did to Pavel was the opposite of hurting.

His confidence was growing more every day, and Pavel was there to reap the rewards.

He only had to slide his leg forward a little, to open himself up to Greg, before Greg got the hint. Greg's solid chest and thick arm drew away from him, letting him go for a few seconds, and Pavel shivered all over again at the soft sound of the bedside drawer sliding open.

Greg shifted back in behind him, his mouth finding the back of Pavel's shoulder as he reached over and held out a well-used bottle of lube.

Pavel swallowed and arched back into him, taking the bottle in unsteady fingers as he tried to nudge Greg's cock back against his ass.

Greg's mouth worked slowly as he held his hand out, trailing back to the nape of Pavel's neck and pressing slow, unhurried kisses across his back.

Pavel's hands were shaking but he managed to get the bottle's lid flipped up. He squeezed a line of thick, slippery lube across Greg's palm and dropped the bottle.

Greg started to draw his hand back but Pavel reached out, took hold of his wrist.

Greg's teeth scraped and nipped up Pavel's neck, and he made a soft, inquisitive sound against Pavel's skin.

Pavel hummed in answer, taking hold of Greg's hand in both of him. He dragged his thumbs up Greg's palm, slick through the cool lube. His fingers slipped in between Greg's, spreading the lube, warming it between their hands.

If Greg's size was one of Pavel's most shameless turn-ons, his hands were even worse. Calloused skin, broad square palms that made Pavel's look like a child's in comparison. Thick, broad fingers, damp and slick and gleaming with lube as Pavel worked it into his skin.

He knew those fingers, he felt those fingers inside of him in his best daydreams. Strong, safe, steady hands that knew how to open him up until he could come without his cock being touch, with Greg's fingers crooked inside of him, making him writhe.

Breathless, hard against the mattress, Pavel let Greg's hand slip free and started to roll onto his stomach.

Greg slipped his other arm under Pavel, looping across his chest again and pulling him up, back where he was spooning into Greg's body.

Pavel murmured in vague surprise but settled back against him.

Greg's mouth found his neck again, clamping on with careful teeth, working his tongue and lips up to Pavel's jawline.

Slick, warm fingers appeared against his ass, tracing down between his cheeks. Pavel lifted his knee up the mattress, shameless in his eagerness, pressing back against Greg's teasing fingertips.

Greg kept his touch tortuously light, skimming that slick finger over Pavel's asshole, back and forth, circling, bearing down but not firmly enough to push inside. His mouth didn't miss a beat as it traveled its aimless trail across his back, up his shoulder, up his throat. His other hand, locked so possessively around Pavel, took up the tease, fingernails slipping down Pavel's chest, scraping against his nipples gently but enough to make Pavel gasp.

He wanted Greg. All the time, he wanted him. It was everything he used to hear the cadets at the Academy snickering about. Everything he told himself he would never be interested in.

It drove him away from his mind, and that was something Pavel wasn't used to. Nothing had done it before Greg, and nothing had done it since. His mind simply wouldn't ever shut up, even when he wanted it to. He had an obsessive, manic brain that would keep him up for weeks on end puzzling over problems, until he was exhausted and drugging himself for any chance at a few hours rest.

But he could lean against the wall in the cramped, padded training area in the ship's rec rooms, and he could envy a bead of sweat tracking down his lover's stomach so much that it silenced all other thoughts.

It still surprised him. Even then, laying there on his side, Greg's arm clasped around him, Greg's finger teasing at his ass, he couldn't have held a thought in his head if his life depended on it.

He wanted, that was all. He didn't think, didn't know or want to know or want to learn. He wanted.

It was such a physical, mindless thing. And now that he had it, this thing that made him want so hard that it shut his brain off, he craved it all the time.

He shook on the bed, against Greg's chest, just from anticipation. He was hard, aching with it, rocking back against Greg's touch to try to pull him deeper.

Greg made a soft shushing noise against his shoulder even as he gave in to Pavel's demands and let his slicked finger sink into Pavel's body.

Heat prickled against his skin. Pavel's eyes shut and he let out an unsteady breath. He reached up and gripped Greg's forearm, pushing back against his finger.

Greg mouthed the skin at his shoulder absently as he worked inside of Pavel, one finger, and then two, a pattern that they knew well by then. Greg was a master at it, better at warming Pavel up than Pavel had ever been in the days when he tried so hard to teach himself what it was like.

Greg's hands were as deliberate as the rest of his body, as precise and intent in their movements. Sometimes he would hurry the stretching, going carefully but quickly until he was satisfied that Pavel could take his cock without pain. But sometimes he made this his focus, driving his fingers slowly, angling against Pavel's prostate unerringly until Pavel was a twitching, mindless mess.

This time seemed like neither of those two, though. He didn't seem to be in a rush to get to the next part, but he wasn't trying to stimulate Pavel. He was sliding those warm, slick fingers in and out, slow and smooth and patient.

Pavel tried to show his impatience, driving his hips back, whimpering eagerness for more, for the blunt, thick head of Greg's cock against him instead of these teasing fingers. Greg ignored him, keeping the same slow pace. His forehead pressed into Pavel's shoulder, his breathing quiet but speeding up fast as he worked his fingers in and out, in and out.

The thin sheets were too hot against him, but Pavel didn't move to push them away. He shut his eyes, panting, and even though he craved more he could already feel the pool of heat in his gut, the beginnings of a slide into release.

Not yet, though. His fingers curled into Greg's arm, hard, and he whimpered.

Greg mumbled into his back, low, unintelligible sounds in that thick, vibrating bass his voice fell into when he was turned on. His arm clenched around Pavel's thin chest, thumb brushing back and forth over his nipple in the same slow rhythm he used to push into Pavel's body.

Pavel could come from that - he'd come from less before. He knew it and he wanted more but he couldn't stop himself, couldn't pull away or voice any objections. He wanted more but he needed this, any of it, Greg, enough that he couldn't protest it.

It might have been minutes, or seconds, or an hour. Pavel couldn't focus enough to keep time, and the ceaseless rhythm of Greg's fingers was hypnotic.

He was whimpering again, he could hear himself suddenly, and he couldn't have said how long he was doing it before he realized it. His hand was clenched tight around Greg's arm, so tight his could feel his fingers throbbing with that same slow rhythm. His heart seemed to have timed itself to match, his breathing.

On and on, push after push, slow and steady and endless, and he lost himself to the hypnotic pulse of it until it wasn't just his mind that was gone, shut off and inaccessible. It felt like his body was, too. Like the only parts of him that existed were the parts Greg's skin pressed into. Even his cock, aching for contact, seemed numb and distant compared to his chest under Greg's hand, and his back against Greg's chest.

When Greg's fingers drove deep into him a last time and suddenly stopped moving deep in his body, it was like free-falling. Like every internal system that had reset itself to match that rhythm was suddenly cut loose.

Greg's arm slipped from his chest and smoothed down his stomach, and his broad fingertips stroked a line up the underside of Pavel's cock.

Pavel didn't recognize the sound that came out of his own mouth. He clawed at Greg's arm, clenched his spasming fingers into the sheet under him, and with only that stroke of fingertips his cock jumped and pulsed and erupted, twitching into the empty air as he came.

It was blinding for its suddenness, fierce and startling. Pavel rocked into it, and when it was over he sagged back into Greg's waiting chest, panting and wide-eyed.

Greg's lips brushed against his ear, nuzzling into his hair, as he fought to recover. But before he had more than a couple of coherent but half-formed thoughts, suddenly he was aware of Greg's cock, still rock hard and nudging against his ass.

Even in his daze he heard himself, heard the whine coming from his throat as if some part of him still managed to be unsatisfied. He pushed back against Greg's cock, dragging his knee up in unmistakable invitation.

Greg's shaking breath puffed hot against his neck, but his hand slid free from Pavel's body and the unmistakable thick head of his cock took its place.

Pavel's head bent, his eyes clamped shut, and every part of his mind that had managed to switch back on after his orgasm focused greedily as Greg pushed into his body.

He never got tired of it, never even seemed to get used to it. The way Greg felt, the stretch of that thick flesh as it sank deeper into him. The shudder of Greg's body as he fought to go slowly, to spare Pavel any pain.

It started slow, even slower than his torturous hand had moved, but Greg seemed to realize he wasn't going to be able to stall for long either way, and he picked up speed quickly. His lube-slicked fingers grasped Pavel's hip as he drove into him, and he pressed his lips open-mouthed against Pavel's shoulder to muffle his moans.

Then there was a sharp ache in his shoulder, a few last pounding thrusts, and Greg shuddered his orgasm, arm still tight around Pavel as he pulsed inside of him.

Pavel's tired cock couldn't manage more than a little shiver of interest, but that was the thing about having Greg inside of him - he didn't have to come from it. Greg rarely did this without having made Pavel come first. That didn't change the fact that his body craved it, that even after that startling orgasm he would have felt unsatisfied all day if he hadn't felt Greg's cock inside of him.

It was mystifying. It was so far from anything Pavel had ever known before Greg, or away from Greg. The fact that he had become this physical, wanton creature, even just with this man and in this bed, was startling to the sixteen-year-old Pasha in his memory.

Greg was still shuddering as he stirred and slipped carefully free from Pavel's body.

Pavel shivered and tried to open his clenched fingers before he tore right through the sheet.

"Shit."

For a moment Pavel thought that was just a summation, but Greg's fingers suddenly smoothed over his shoulder and he was surprised to feel a pinch of pain. He raised his head off the pillow and squinted up, and saw the unmistakable marks in his own skin that Greg was tracing out with his finger.

He laughed, more air than sound. "You bit me?" He remembered the flash of pain he felt right before Greg came.

Greg, sweaty and disheveled, lifted his eyes from those perfect tooth-marks to Pavel's face.

Pavel spoke fast, the moment the slightest crease of worry appeared in Greg's forehead. "You must not have realized yet."

Greg swallowed, searching his face carefully. "What?"

Pavel had to focus, to consciously order his fingers to unclench. He had grabbed Greg's arm while Greg was still teasing him, and he was only then letting go.

Greg hissed in a breath, surprised. "Jesus!"

Pavel was surprised himself - the marks his fingernails left in Greg's broad forearm were deep and already angry red, and where his index finger had been there was a small line of blood welling up.

Greg lifted up, looking over Pavel at his trapped arm, and the worry left his eyes. He laughed, ragged and relieved.

"Damn, we're gonna need safe-words if we keep this up."

Pavel grinned even as he brushed regretful fingertips down Greg's arm beside the half-moons his fingernails had dug. He grabbed Greg's wrist and hauled his arm up, tilting his face down to press a kiss over one of the angry marks.

Greg shivered, sinking down on his back and letting his arm fall when Pavel let him go. "Shit," he sighed out, and that time it did seem to be a summation.

Pavel rolled over onto his other side, grinning at the twitch in his shoulder. He dropped his head back on the pillow, studying Greg's profile.

"Morning."

Greg blinked, and laughed. He slipped back onto his side, facing Pavel. "The fact that we just did all that before we even said good morning...I can't tell if that's bad manners or the perfect fucking start to a day."

Pavel reached out, trailing his fingertips across Greg's chest, grinning so hugely that his eyes squinted. He watched his pale, thin fingers smoothing over the curves and plains of that broad chest he knew so well.

Sixteen year old Pasha, living in the back of Pavel's mind surrounded by books and filled with bafflement about the inter-relations of the people around him, may not have understood how he could lose so much of his mind willingly to something so physical. But even that confused version of Pasha couldn't have denied that he was happy.

Really, completely _happy_.

When he lifted his gaze back to Greg's face, just the soft-eyed smile Greg was looking back at him with was enough to make him want to do it all again.

Instead he just curled in, slipping his arm around Greg and pulling himself in close. He pressed a kiss to Greg's chest, sighing happily as their legs tangled together.

"Do you know what I was thinking about before you woke up?" he asked, going boneless against Greg, peaceful in a way he never felt outside their bedroom.

"What?"

"I was thinking about how much I owe Matt Lepinski."

Greg tensed a little, lifting his head to peer down at Pavel. "Lepinski? From school? What the hell do you owe that shithead for?"

"If it wasn't for him we might not have ever met."

Greg's head dropped again. He was silent for a thoughtful moment. "We'd've met up here, on the ship."

"If I survived that long," Pavel added, wry. "And who knows, we may not have. There are dozens of crew on board here that I don't know. I might have passed you in the corridors every day and never even said hello." He ducked his head, brushing his mouth across Greg's skin. "I might not have ever realized what sort of man you are."

Greg laughed quietly. "Want me to find out where Lepinski is now? Send him some flowers or something?"

Pavel grinned an uneven-feeling grin against him. "Nothing so extreme. If we ever run across him again you could let him live. That would be gift enough."

"I'd rather send him some posies now and beat his head in whenever I see him." Greg's fingers slipped through Pavel's hair, toying absently. "Hell, if it means that much to you I'll even send a card with the flowers, warn him that I'm coming after his ass."

Pavel giggled, eyes slipping shut as he curled into Greg. "_Moyo chudo," _he murmured into Greg's chest.

"You gonna tell me what that means someday?" Greg asked, voice low and soft as he stroked through Pavel's hair as gently as if he were trying to help Pavel go back to sleep.

Pavel smiled against him but didn't answer. He was fond of Grischa as a nickname for his Greg, and Greg always got this warm look in his eyes when Pavel said it. But his newest term of endearment for his lover felt more right sometimes, more accurate.

He didn't explain it to Greg, what it meant or why he first called him that in a dingy hotel room in a miserable South Dakota town. He didn't like to bring that day back, not even in his own mind much less reminding Greg of it.

"Hey..."

"Hmm?" Pavel hummed in response.

When Greg didn't answer he drew back, blinking his eyes open.

Greg met his gaze but looked away after a moment. He hesitated, his mouth opening and then shutting, and he pulled his hand free from Pavel's hair.

Pavel blinked, his smile fading. "What?"

Greg shook his head, dropping back on his back. "Nothing."

It wasn't nothing, Pavel could tell that easily enough. Something in Greg's eyes looked almost troubled. And that was a bad sign, especially considering that they were both still sweating and flushed from their romp minutes ago.

He pushed himself up, leaning on his elbow to look down at Greg. "What is it?"

Greg grinned weakly. "Nothing. Really. I just...you know. Shit."

Pavel smiled after a moment, scratching a gentle fingernail down Greg's chest. "Just say it. You know I hate it when you silence yourself."

Greg drew in a breath. His eyes moved back to Pavel's face, and maybe he wasn't troubled after all. It was something else. Not anything horrible, maybe, but it wasn't simple happiness either.

Pavel frowned. "Tell me, or I'll worry."

"I just..." Greg sighed again, rolling his eyes. "Fuck, I'm crap at this."

Pavel raised his eyebrows, regarding him, waiting.

Greg drew in a deep breath and seemed to hold it. "What're you doing after shift tonight?" he asked suddenly, a rush of air and words that seemed to be far more urgent than that question usually warranted. "I mean...you know. You got any projects or anything? Working with Scotty or Spock or anyone?"

Pavel studied him, but shrugged. "Nothing specific. I can always find something if you're trying to get rid of me."

Greg grinned, uneven but it looked sincere. "Kinda the opposite. You think you could get your busy ass back here straight from the bridge? I mean...we could have dinner. Or something."

He couldn't help a small, baffled laugh. "If we hadn't been sleeping together for years I would think you were asking me out on a date."

Greg rolled his eyes. "I'm just an idiot. That's...I mean, I kind of am, actually. Just, you get busy sometimes and I wanted to...um. Talk to you. About something."

A little flutter of nerves invaded Pavel's stomach. His smile faded. "About what?"

Greg shrugged. "Nothing bad. I think." He almost looked the way Pavel felt, like nerves were churning in his gut. He sucked in a strengthening rush of air and managed to hold Pavel's confused gaze. "Really. I kinda wanted to set up something nice tonight, and talk to you about something. That's all."

Pavel regarded him, wary, but of course he nodded. If Greg wanted him there he would be there. Greg asked ridiculously little of him, really.

He smiled, though his instincts were chirping at him that something was going on. "I'll be here."

Greg returned the smile, strained at the edges. "Good. Okay."

"You realize that I'm going to wonder about this all day. You are very cruel to do this to someone who can't shut his mind up for two minutes."

Greg grinned, the strain fading back. "Your own fault for being a genius," he answered without remorse.

Pavel pushed himself up, stretching his body out and feeling his contentment returning with every twitch of tired, happy muscles.

"Hey..." Greg reached out and grabbed his hand to keep him from standing. "I...you know." He rolled his eyes at himself. "Love you, Pasha."

That at least seemed shadowless and sincere. Pavel smiled instantly, squeezing his hand. "I love you too."

Greg grinned, and Pavel pushed to his feet with a little less of a flutter in his gut.

* * *

To be continued...


	13. Chapter 13

My Last Faith Part Two

* * *

Well, sweet fucking Jesus. He couldn't have fucked that up much harder if he tried.

Couldn't even ask the guy he'd been sleeping with for years to come have dinner with him without scaring him. Way to fucking go, Harris.

Romantic fucking prick.

"Harris! Christ, man."

Greg jumped, pulling to a stop just before he would have run headlong into Doctor McCoy. The doc was carrying about a dozen padds in this awkward heap in his arms, and no doubt Greg would've broke every last one of them.

He felt his face heat. "Sorry, doc."

McCoy just looked at him sideways, like he suddenly had an arm growing out of his head or something. "I know this ship's full of daydreaming idiots, just never took you for one of 'em."

Greg grinned sheepishly.

It had taken him a while to figure out how to take McCoy. He was a strange guy, walking around like he was pissed off at the world most of the time. But McCoy wasn't so bad. He wasn't half as mad as he acted half the time, just he spoke pretty sharp and didn't like wasting his time.

Greg could deal with that. McCoy wasn't so different from the men Greg grew up around. Not the dicks in his family, but the guys around town, the farmers who came in once or twice a month. The guys who didn't like a lot of useless chitchat, who spoke straight and blunt and could give a shit what people thought.

Anyway, McCoy had helped him when his arm got jacked up. And he saved Pasha's life about five times now, and he was one of that group of A-list crew that Pasha thought of as his closest friends.

He wasn't stuck up the way some of Pasha's friends were. Wasn't so dubious about Greg just because Greg wasn't a brainiac the way all of them were.

Greg liked McCoy, maybe second only to Hikaru when it came to Pasha's friends.

So he held out a hand in apology. "Want some help?"

McCoy eyed him, but didn't waste more than a beat before unloading half his awkward stack of padds into Greg's arms. "You got a shift to get to?"

"Nah. Day off." Greg tried not to sound annoyed - other people liked having days off, he knew. He was the only freak who didn't. Well, not when Pasha had to work. When they were both off together...those were good days.

McCoy nodded on, and Greg turned and headed down the corridor beside him.

A minute later, approaching the lift that would take them up to sickbay, McCoy glanced over at him.

"So where the hell was your head a minute ago, anyway?"

Greg shrugged. It was private and he didn't do too good talking about private things with people he didn't know all that well. He was better about it with Hikaru, and of course he didn't like keeping things from Pasha, but...

Hell. That was the whole problem, wasn't it? That's where Greg's head was, distracted by this thing he had set in motion, this thing he scared Pasha so much about earlier.

This thing he hadn't talked to Pasha about yet.

He sighed and followed McCoy onto the lift when the door slid open.

Probably wouldn't hurt to talk about it with the doc. McCoy was like a shrink, supposedly, at least a few of the guys in Greg's division who'd gone through some bad missions got sent up to talk to him.

McCoy was also a blunt guy who didn't blab about shit like most of the gossiping jerks on the crew. Greg needed that, maybe, a lot more than he needed a shrink.

He spoke hesitantly as the lift hummed around them. "You used to be married, right?"

McCoy shot him a look. Instantly wary, Greg could tell. Sore spot. "Yeah."

Greg could tell just from that, that short answer and the dark-eyed look, that it wasn't a good memory.

Funny thing was, Greg didn't know one single couple who was happily married. Not a single one. His folks were about as miserable as two people could get. Most of the adults he grew up around were married, but there didn't seem to be any kind of joy in it. Like they'd picked someone to share their misery with, and things never went deeper than that.

He didn't know many happy couples at all, but the few he could name didn't have rings on their fingers.

That didn't mean the two things were related, of course. Most of the people Greg knew growing up were miserable bastards, married or not.

The lift door opened. Greg looked out for a moment before sighing and stepping off the lift.

McCoy followed him slowly, still studying him. There was something curious in his face, which was probably better than the wariness.

Greg frowned. "You think you'd ever do it again?"

McCoy's forehead creased. "What? Get married? It'd take a hell of a good reason."

"Um. What about just being in love with somebody?"

McCoy stopped in the middle of the corridor, turning a frown to Greg. "Love and marriage don't have a thing to do with each other, Harris. Nobody ever stopped being in love just because they couldn't get married, and a hell of a lot of people who never felt love for each other have put rings on their hands. It doesn't mean shit."

Greg blinked, surprised. "Well...I mean, that's not really true all the time. That it doesn't mean shit, I mean. It might mean something, if-"

McCoy scowled at him. "Doesn't fucking matter. The only person in the universe I'd even consider asking would never want to get roped down that way, so thinking about it is a waste of god damned time."

Greg wasn't the sharpest guy in the world, but he could put together easily enough that McCoy hadn't mean anything he'd been saying as a general thing. He was talking specific, about someone in particular.

Wasn't too hard to figure out who. But Greg wasn't the kind of guy who invited himself into other people's business. Even if sometimes he thought that Kirk was such a bed-hopper because he _did _want to find someone who'd want him for keeps.

Wasn't his business, though, so he didn't say anything. He just shrugged and shifted the padds in his hands and tried not to turn too red.

"Doesn't mean it would be a bad idea for...for other people. Does it?"

McCoy stared at him hard for a moment, then turned and kept moving towards sickbay. "Jesus, Harris. You're gonna ask that kid to marry you."

Greg lost his fight against turning red, but he kept a step behind McCoy so maybe the doc wouldn't notice.

There wasn't anybody in the corridors, but when they got into sickbay there were nurses around, a couple of guys lying in beds getting scanned or whatever.

McCoy tromped back into his office without more than a grunt to any of the nurses – who all looked like they were used to that kind of good morning from the doc.

Greg followed him back and set the padds on McCoy's desk when the doc dumped his armful. He hesitated, standing uncertainly as McCoy moved around his desk and sat, reaching to thumb the communicator.

"_Kirk here._"

Greg had this absurd flash of fear, like McCoy was calling the bridge to tell on him.

Instead McCoy didn't even look at him, just sorted his padds. "I need to see your helmsman down here, Jim."

"_Sulu?_"

"You got another alpha-shift pilot I don't know about? Yeah, Sulu."

"_I suppose since we're in the middle of the most boring hunk of universe I have ever even heard of I can spare him for a few. Anything I should be concerned about? Or can gossip over while he's gone?"_

McCoy rolled his eyes, and if eye-rolling had a sound than it was right there in his voice when he answered. "Aside from a chronic refusal to check in for post-away-team checkups – a behavior, _Captain_, that these idiots all learn from you – then no. Despite the fact that every planet you land on has a million diseases and infectious agents that could have come back up with you, your pilot seems to think he's immortal. And I don't care where you are on that bridge, Spock, if you so much as open your mouth I'll order you down here too."

"_If you would refrain from constantly indulging in overstatement, doctor, I wouldn't have to open-"_

McCoy reached out with a smirk and thumbed the panel, cutting off the calm voice of the first officer.

Greg shifted, feeling unnervingly like he was at attention, waiting for a commanding officer to become aware of him. He was just helping McCoy with some padds, he had no clue if he was expected to stay or go or what.

McCoy sat back in his chair, pushing the padds aside and suddenly looking out at Greg.

Greg looked back, unsure. "Uh. Guess I'll just-"

"Sit down."

"What?"

McCoy pointed to the chair across from his desk.

Greg knew that Kirk's ship was a little less formal than most. He knew that just because McCoy was a higher rank didn't mean that he necessarily had to sit down just because the doc said so.

But training was hard to overcome, and despite himself Greg was curious about what the hell the doc had to say to him.

He sat.

McCoy stared at him, but sighed and shook his head and turned back to the padds, sorting through them and placing them in different stacks over his desk.

Greg waited, more confused by the second.

A few minutes passed before McCoy's door chimed.

Hikaru peered in when the door slid open. "As glad as I am to get away from the bridge for a few minutes in the middle of the most boring shift ever, Chapel says I'm not overdue for any tests or checkups or anything."

McCoy gestured him in and nodded at Greg. "He's proposing to the kid."

Greg sat up, startled out of his confusion.

"_What?_" Hikaru moved into the office instantly, letting the door close behind him. His eyebrows shot up high as he turned his focus on Greg. Something that looked a hell of a lot like a scowl darkened his face.

"Damn it, are you kidding me?"

Greg felt another weird twirl in his gut like fear. He pushed down against his instant reaction, which was to get pissed and ask McCoy what fucking business it was of his. He did stand up, though, because hell if he needed to get cornered by people he thought were okay with him.

Hikaru pointed right back at the chair like he had some kinda authority over Greg or something. "Sit down. Maybe we can still talk some sense into you."

"What?" Greg stifled rising worry – Hikaru was Pasha's best friend, smarter than Greg, their biggest champion out of all Pasha's friends, what the _fuck _was so wrong with-

"Harris, sit down." McCoy stood up and moved around his desk, meeting Hikaru halfway, and the two of them turned like they were facing Greg down. "Jesus, man, do you have any idea what kind of disaster this is going to be?"

Greg's worry was getting harder to stifle by the second. "What...it's not..."

"You have no idea." McCoy turned his dark-eyed gaze to Hikaru beside him. "You have no clue. The man sits in his quarters at night and _plots _for this kind of thing."

Hikaru nodded grimly. "I can imagine."

"No, you really can't. People got kicked out of the Academy because of him. _Babies_ have been born. The man doesn't wager in any kind of sane way."

Greg scowled from one to the other. "What the fuck are you talking about? Babies? What man?"

Hikaru sighed. "Kirk."

"Kirk? What about..." He stopped as more of their words filtered through his surprised brain. "What wager?"

"It should have been an easy win!" Hikaru threw his hands up, and McCoy sighed and went back around his desk, and suddenly they didn't seem all that grim anymore.

Suddenly Hikaru was almost grinning. "He was supposed to ask you."

Greg stared at him. "What?"

"Pavel. The genius little runt who always knows what's best for everyone. He's supposed to do that starry-eyed romantic _thing _he does, and make the first move."

Greg looked at Hikaru. He drew in a slow breath and looked past him at McCoy. He tried to keep his hands from rolling into fists, breathing out again slowly.

"You made some bet with the captain. About which one of us'd ask the other one to _marry_ him?"

Hikaru smiled, moving to perch on the broad edge of McCoy's solid desk. "Honestly, Greg, I didn't think it would ever occur to you to ask him."

Greg didn't relax. He didn't move. "You made a stupid bet about my fucking _life, _and came at me like that when I tried to talk to you about what I was-"

"Hey." Hikaru's smile wilted a little. "Don't take it like that. We make bets on everything, that was as good a wager as any."

Greg shook his head, trying to breathe, to let go of the knots binding in his shoulders, keeping him tense.

Okay. Fuck. Pasha's friends were a bunch of cocky, smart-assed pricks, nothing new there. Of course this was all some big fucking joke to them. Of course they didn't give a-

"Harris."

Greg turned his glare on McCoy. He liked the doc most of the time, but for fuck's sake.

McCoy flashed a wry grin. "All it means is we all saw this coming. Hell, we couldn't get anyone to bet on the third choice - that neither of you'd ever pop the question."

Hikaru nodded. "Sucker bet."

Greg blinked, looking back over at the doc.

McCoy smiled, a little less hard and twisted than his smiles usually were. "We knew it'd happen, okay? It's right, for the two of you love-soaked idiots at least."

"Exactly." Hikaru's cheeks were going a little pink, like he suddenly realized why Greg was pissed. "We're just...being supportive. In a slightly less direct way than you maybe wanted."

Greg snorted. "You're being dicks. Jesus."

"Granted." McCoy sat back at his desk, grinning. "You're seriously gonna do this, huh?"

Greg wanted to stay pissed, but the moment McCoy gave him the opening he couldn't stop himself. "Yeah. I am."

McCoy shook his head, but his grin stayed in place.

Hikaru leaned back against the doc's desk, studying Greg.

And okay, maybe Greg was happier when they were being dicks. At least if he was pissed he wasn't fucking scared.

McCoy had saved Pasha's life before. Hikaru had helped Greg and Pasha get past a rough patch or two. These guys were important.

Dicks, but important. If Greg'd really gotten ticked off at them and stormed out, it would've probably ended up with him never asking Pasha anything. These guys were smarter than him, and if they thought it was such a bad idea...

"You know..." Hikaru lofted his eyebrows, suddenly looking at Greg with a new kind of curiosity in his eyes. "Pavel's kind of an old-fashioned guy about some things. He doesn't talk about it a lot on the ship, since there's no point missing what he can't have, but...family means a lot to him."

Greg frowned, but thought he knew where Hikaru was trying to go.

When he answered his voice was kind of quiet, kind of weird for Greg. "I already talked to his dad about it."

Hikaru's eyebrows arched even higher. "Yeah?"

Greg nodded, smiling a little despite himself. These guys were important, yeah, but Pasha didn't love _anybody _as much as he loved his dad. And his dad...he didn't think it was a bad idea.

Greg really fucking liked Pasha's dad.

He smiled to himself, and dug into his pocket for one of the two things Andrei Chekov had helped him out with. He hesitated, feeling his face heating up, but opened the little box and tried not to feel too goofy holding it out as proof.

"He helped me get this. Guy from Pasha's village made it. Well, he used to live in the village, now he's in some big city making a shitload of money designing this kind of thing, but Pasha's dad helped me get an order in."

Hikaru reached out and took the heavy little box. He barely even glanced at the ring before his eyes shot back up to Greg.

"Wait a minute. You're _serious _serious. Not, like, space-proposal serious, like these couples that end up engaged for a five-year assignment and then go their separate ways at the end without anybody being surprised."

McCoy leaned over his desk and swiped the box from him. He peered at it and whistled lowly. "Not bad."

Greg looked from Hikaru's surprised face to McCoy's considering eyes, unsure.

Of course he was serious. He knew a few of those couples who did like Hikaru said, acting like they were gonna be together forever until the minute they left the ship behind. But he and Pasha hadn't even been like those people.

Yeah, they had a few arguments or whatever, but most people did. And anyway, every time that happened it just made Greg even more sure that he was completely fucking miserable without Pasha around and probably always would be.

Pasha was the first person maybe in his whole life who looked at Greg and saw something besides an overgrown idiot. Pasha actually made Greg think maybe he really was something more than that. No one ever did that for him before.

Even more surprising? Greg was starting to think that maybe he himself did the same kind of thing for Pasha. Like Pasha, even though he was this gorgeous, amazing fucking _genius_, actually needed to see something else in himself, and Greg helped him see it.

Or something. Whatever, he wasn't about to say anything like that to Hikaru or McCoy, but at least he could answer them honestly without any kind of doubt.

"I'm serious."

Hikaru's face had softened during the pause, while Greg's slow-assed brain slogged through his thoughts. He smiled at Greg, and something about it made Greg even more nervous.

He moved up to the desk, nodding at the box McCoy still had.

"It's Russian," he said, since something like a ring was easier to talk about than the shit muddled up in his brain. "The design, the three little bands. Traditional or whatever. Pasha's dad says it's kind of old school, but he has one like it, and so did Pasha's mom. So I think Pasha'll like it."

McCoy held the box out to him, and that weird soft-eyed kind of look like Hikaru had was on his face too. "I'd say you did good, Harris."

Greg shrugged. He took the box and looked down at the ring. He liked it, the strange little design like three littler rings all tangled together. They didn't come apart or anything, it was just shaped to look like they were separate, and they were shaded different, like different kinds of gold. Maybe it was old school in Russia but Greg never saw one like it before.

The guy who made it, Yudashkin, he wrote up this whole little thing about what the tradition meant and what kinds of gold he used and all that. It was nice, made the whole thing feel even more special. Greg had that letter folded up and stashed in with his gym stuff, which was maybe a little less special than it deserved but there weren't many places he was sure Pasha wouldn't stumble over. Hell, that's the reason he was carrying the ring around with him instead of keeping it safe in their quarters.

If Pasha didn't want to say yes to him Greg figured he'd give him the ring anyway. It felt like it meant something, and...

Maybe he shouldn't fuck it up by making it part of some idiot proposal. Pasha would really like it any other time, maybe Greg was making a mistake attaching this huge fucking marriage thing around it.

He wasn't even twenty yet, why the hell would he ever want to make some promise to some dumbass security grunt, anyway?

Greg frowned and shut the lid on the box. "So what did you wager his answer would be when I asked him?"

McCoy snorted. "It's not a real bet if it's a sure thing."

Greg glanced over, but when he saw McCoy's smile he couldn't manage one in response.

"Hang on a minute." Hikaru was looking at Greg like he was suddenly confused. "Greg. Are you seriously _worrying_ about this?"

Greg shrugged. "He's too young. He's too fucking smart, and he's too young, and what the fuck right do I have?"

"Oh, lord."

Greg frowned over at McCoy. "He's never even been with anyone else. It doesn't feel all that fair to him."

McCoy rolled his eyes. "Jesus save us from self-deprecating martyrs."

"I'm not fucking kidding around here," Greg answered, heat quick to enter his voice what with him still being tense over their little wager. "I get it, you don't take it seriously, it's some big fucking joke to you guys, but I don't-"

"Greg."

He glared at Hikaru, his hand clenching around the ring in its plain little box.

Hikaru met his eyes, serious – or serious-looking, at least. "Okay, so here's what you do. You pop the question, set some date to make it official. And you make a deal – between now and that date you two can go your separate ways. He can screw whoever he wants, and experience all the awkwardness and shame and bad sex and depressing encounters that all us normal people in the world get to go through."

Greg gaped at him, anger twisting into some kind of panic so fast that it made his voice rise. "What? Fuck that, we're not doing that."

"But it's perfect," Hikaru said. "You want him to be with someone else, don't you?"

"No! That's not what I said."

"Well...he probably _wants_ to be with other people, don't you think? Take a few test drives before he settles on something permanent?"

Greg scowled at Hikaru, seeing that too-innocent look on his face that meant he was being stupid on purpose, to make a point. Hikaru was good at that, at playing along with a dumb idea until it looked even dumber.

It was a sneaky way to make a point, but Greg's scowl faded when he realized what the point actually was.

"No." Funny, but as much as Greg doubted himself sometimes he was sure of that answer. "I don't figure he does want to be with other people."

Hikaru grinned.

Greg returned it a little, though his queasiness about that night wasn't fading and probably wasn't going to until it was over and done.

* * *

The trouble with having an overactive mind was that it made stretches of boredom feel even more unbearable.

On a normal shift minutes ticked by like hours when there wasn't anything going on besides the normal duties of his job. During a shift like that day's, when the course was laid out without worry, when there was absolutely nothing of interest in passing space to occupy his attention...time seemed to stop dead.

Pavel tried to keep his mind busy with outside things, contemplating the half-dozen projects and papers he was working on outside of the bridge, but he was having a hard time keeping focused.

When the lift doors slid open he looked back instantly - like everyone else on the bridge - hoping for a few minutes of diversion.

Hikaru moved in, flashing a faint smile at Kirk and moving back to his seat at the helm.

There was an audible hum of disappointment in the air as the rest of the crew turned back to their panels.

Pavel frowned at Hikaru, sliding his chair closer. "Is everything alright?"

Hikaru glanced over, and something odd slid over his face as he looked at Pavel. Odd, but not alarming. "Sure. McCoy's just being McCoy. One little scan and he was done with me."

Pavel studied him carefully.

Hikaru grinned. "Honest, Pavel. I'm fine."

"Mm." Pavel sighed, though, and looked back at the endless passing stars on the viewscreen. "Is it a bad thing that I'm a little disappointed?"

"What?"

"Not that you're fine, just that now there's nothing to talk about again."

Hikaru chuckled.

Pavel grinned wryly at the viewscreen. Perhaps he could ask the doctor to summon him as well. Surely there was some test or another McCoy could put him through.

A prickle of skin at the back of his neck made him glance over again, and he blinked to see Hikaru still staring at him.

"What?"

"Nothing." Hikaru smiled, small and odd, almost private-looking, and looked back at the viewscreen.

But a moment later he looked right back at Pavel. "You know...I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but sometimes you piss me off more than anyone in the universe."

Pavel blinked. "I was just kidding about being disappo-"

"It's not that, Pavel, come on." Hikaru shook his head, and despite his words he was grinning. "You just have to be right, don't you? Every single time. You say these bizarre things and they're always right. You come up with these theories that have even Spock looking at you like you're nuts, but you always prove them right."

Hikaru hesitated, his grin softening. "You make these strange choices that no one can understand, and they seem like they shouldn't work for even a minute. But they do, and you end up better off than anyone ever would have..."

Pavel frowned, even though it was clear from his smile that Hikaru wasn't being entirely serious. Still, that had to come from somewhere. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You will." Hikaru grinned.

Pavel blinked, but rolled his eyes a moment later. "I don't know why I bother asking, you love to be mysterious."

Hikaru laughed. "I do not. I'm just terrible at keeping secrets, but for some reason people keep telling them to me."

"Secrets? You know secrets?"

Hikaru's grin faded and he turned to face the screen fast. "See? Terrible."

Now that he was at least sure that there really wasn't some seed of animosity towards him in Hikaru's brain, Pavel relaxed and slid his chair in a few inches. "Hikaru."

"Shut up. Go away, I'm not even talking to you."

"Hi-kaaaa-ru."

"I'm serious." Hikaru's mouth twitched. "I hate you. Go away."

Since he wasn't serious at all, Pavel gave up and slid his chair back to his own panel.

Hikaru trying to keep a secret was strange, but this obviously wasn't something horrible or he would be much more tense about it. He really was terrible at keeping secrets, but Pavel was a friend enough not to take advantage of that. He could let it go for a while.

Though it left him with his original problem: boredom.

Luckily that too resolved itself within a few minutes. The silence lurking over the bridge was interrupted, finally, by the twitter at the communications panel, and Nyota's instant and eager reaction.

"Captain, we're receiving an urgent communication from Starfleet headquarters."

"Thank _Christ_." Kirk all but jumped out of his chair. "I'll take it in the conference room," he said, no doubt just so he could smirk in response to the groans of complaint from the rest of his crew. "If it's something interesting," he informed them as he took off across the bridge, "you'll know soon enough."

* * *

"_Vyhodi za men...zamuzh_."

"Vyhodi za _menja_ zamuzh_."_

"_Vyhodi za..._menja_ zamuzh_."

Over the viewscreen Andre shook his head, chuckling in that deep, full way he always laughed. "_He will understand you, at least."_

Greg blew out a breath and looked down at the ring on the table in front of him. "Shit."

_"I've told you, stop worrying so much. It's a good thing that you speak Russian as badly as you do. We will know that my son truly loves you if he hears you mangle his language and says yes anyway."_

Greg flashed a half-hearted grin. "Great. You're a big help, Chekov."

_"I do what I can." _Andre studied him through the screen and shook his head suddenly. The beard covering half his face made it hard to read his expression sometimes, but Greg could always hear the smile in his voice. "_You will make him happy, Gregor. You already do that much. You must stop thinking of all the things you think you can't offer, and think of that instead." _

Greg shut the lid over the ring and looked up again. "I'm trying. Really. Anyway, it doesn't even matter. I told some of his dumb-ass friends about it today, and if I chicken out now they'll blab to him anyway. So I gotta ask him, no matter how I'm feeling about it."

"_Good! In that case, I will plan to message Pavel myself tomorrow, so you have one more 'dumb ass' to worry about." _

Greg grinned. "You're about as good at cussing in English as I am saying anything in Russian."

"Da, _we have much to teach each other." _Andre chuckled. _"Now you must go get ready – these calls must be expensive, and you no longer need my help."_

"Yeah." Greg drew in a breath and flashed a smile – nervous or not (scared shitless or not, more like), he really did like the hell out of Andre. "Thanks for everything."

Andre said something in Russian before he vanished from the screen, something formal-sounding. Maybe a blessing or something, he liked those.

Greg pushed away from Pasha's desk and stood up, blowing out a breath.

Had a whole plan he had to get going with, and Pasha's shift only had a couple more hours. He didn't really have time to worry anymore.

* * *

tbc


	14. Chapter 14

"…Jim."

"That's our assignment, Bones."

"Jim..."

"There are people in _danger_. Maybe."

"Jim."

"Hey. Starfleet calls the shots here, not me. And I'm not gonna turn the assignment down because of one little complication."

McCoy blinked, incredulous. "One little..." He looked around at the other faces around the table, probably seeking support.

Pavel just tennis-matched his gaze from the doctor to the captain, silent, along with the other crew brought in for the post-Starfleet-communication briefing.

There was something especially entertaining about these briefings when McCoy was present.

McCoy didn't stay silent long. "Allow me to summarize, Jim, since I can be slow about these kinds of things and I want to be sure I'm not missing something: this planet has some kind of bogus charge in its atmosphere." He glared at Spock as he gave a quiet sigh to McCoy's simplified translation. "Whatever this charge is screws up every piece of technology we rely on, and so far about a dozen people have vanished thanks to it."

Jim grinned. "Nice summation."

McCoy stared at him. "And you call that one little complication."

"Starfleet calls it one complication." Jim shrugged. "With a subset of minor related complications."

"Minor related..." McCoy rubbed his temple. "Save us from bureaucratic doublespeak."

"It's an interesting mission, Bones, and it's a hell of a lot less deadly than some we've been sent on lately. Stop scaring the kids, okay?"

McCoy scowled out at the table, as if it were the rest of the crew's fault for staying silent.

Pavel smiled, but ducked his head to hide it.

He had never been scared of Doctor McCoy the way many of the crew were. McCoy's terseness didn't come from a place of cruelty. He snapped out of worry, he argued for justice and right. He was the most terse with the people he knew best.

Pavel saw no difference in McCoy at the bedside of a sick or injured crewman - the gentle and quiet and kind doctor - and McCoy in a briefing, tense and snappish and upright.

Pavel wasn't scared of that. In fact, it reminded him at times of his own father.

When Pavel was a child Andrei Chekov was a good deal more stern than he was now. He kept his distance, he worked long hours and came home to eat and grunt out a few words, and then go to bed. He was blunt to the point of being terse, but even right after Pavel's mother died, when it was at its worst, Pavel never had a single doubt that his father adored him.

There was a difference between being terse and being cruel, and Andrei was never cruel. He wouldn't speak a great deal, but he would listen to Pavel for hours as he rambled on about whatever lessons he was learning in school, whatever theories he had come up with from the used college textbooks his father would find and bring home to him.

His bluntness came from love and grief and having to deal with a life alone when he had expected a life beside his wife.

McCoy, Pavel suspected, was much the same.

Which wasn't to say that Pavel didn't get as amused as everyone else in the crew when McCoy got his most snappish.

"I'm scaring the kids?" The doctor's accent grew ten times thicker when he was angry, which only tended to amuse people more, "There's a planet out there eating people, we get to beam down and see if it's still hungry, and _I'm _the bad guy here?" He jabbed a quick finger towards Spock. "Shut up."

Spock's opening mouth closed and he sighed.

Pavel grinned, like most of the people at that table.

"Let's not be more melodramatic than we have to be," the Captain answered through his usual Bones-inspired grin. "The planet isn't eating people. For all we know those people are alive, maybe even uninjured. Just lost." He nodded towards the viewscreen at the front of the room. "And as far as we know, the only reason that they're lost is because we can't get a sensor reading on about ninety percent of the planet's surface."

"It seems to be a rather interesting problem," Spock said, turning his bemused gaze away from McCoy and back towards the viewscreen. "Starfleet sent a ship in once before, almost a decade ago when this planet first came to their attention. But there wasn't much interest in a minor unpopulated planet at that time, and there was little priority given towards solving the problem of the planet's atmosphere. That first Starfleet crew left without finding a cause. They never even ventured to the planet's surface."

"Some nerd at the science academy – no offense," Kirk directed with a quick grin towards Pavel, "came across the old report about a year ago and did some paper on it, and in response a civilian science vessel decided to do some investigating. They mapped out the planet's surface as much as they were able, which as you can see wasn't much at all."

He reached out, flipping through a few screens on the panel until the viewscreen displayed the basic outline of a planet, sheer black except for small, random patches of terrain, pale and bumpy and odd.

"Those spots of actual terrain are the only spots on the entire planet that the sensors can collect readings on, and they're as ordinary as the surface of any average planet." Kirk sat back, frowning at the display in that intent-eyed way that reminded Pavel even in his most casual moments why Kirk was such a good commander.

"Stand in the middle of one of those patches of ground and everything's completely normal. We can transport you back and forth, the sensors pick up everything. But once you leave those areas the sensors go blind, the transporters can't get a signal."

He glanced back at them, focusing on Spock and then Scotty for brief moments in turn. "Strangely enough, the communicators still seem to work even in the dead zones."

Pavel leaned in - this was a new bit of information, and he found himself studying the planet in sudden interest. "There are quite a few things that might cause sensor blindness - atmospheric make-up, some sort of electromagnetic or irradiated compound in the minerals of rocks or trees or the planet itself. But those things would cause complete failure of our equipment, not selective failure."

"Yep. Weird, huh?" Kirk's eyes went back to that black ball of a planet for another long moment before he shot a grin over at Pavel. "So this first science team went to the surface to figure out what was going on. They monitored them from the ship as they left and re-entered the few live spots on the surface. They got a few readings, initiated a few theories. But before they could find anything solid, the team stepped into a dead zone and just didn't come back out."

Most of the amusement McCoy had inspired was gone by then. Pavel frowned up at the viewscreen.

"That's it. That's all we know about them. They stepped in and didn't step back out as they were supposed to. From the communications logs it seems like they went in too far and got turned around somehow and simply couldn't find their way back. A few hours later they stopped responding to the ship's hails, and that's the last we know of them."

Kirk nodded back at the planet, solemn again. "A second civilian science vessel came in response to the report filed by the remains of the first crew, and almost to the letter the same thing happened: they went down to the surface to search for signs of the first team and vanished into a dead zone. They left a record of a couple of hours of confused comm calls back up to the ship, and suddenly stopped answering. They haven't been heard from since."

"So naturally the best idea is for _us _to go down there and make it three-for-three."

Kirk ignored McCoy's grumble. He flipped off the viewscreen and turned to face the group.

"These are civilians, maybe alive, maybe hurt. They need our help, but..." He hesitated for the first time, mouth drawing down at the corners. "Starfleet has taken the rather Bonesian view that losing a third group of people won't help anything, and so the help we're going to be providing isn't in the form of search parties. Instead our mission is to solve the puzzle of the planet itself."

He faced the crew one by one, quick but intent, reading their faces. Pavel met his brief gaze steadily, fascinated by the mystery of the planet and not bothering to hide it.

Kirk smiled after a moment. "I'm not leaving innocent civilians trapped on this planet. Starfleet's right that our focus needs to be figuring out the cause for the sensor failures, but only because the sooner we find that out, the sooner we figure out how to compensate for it, and the sooner we find these missing people. We've had a bit of good luck on a lot of missions so far, but that dead zone is hundreds of thousands of square miles, and nobody's luck is that good."

He sat back, looking everyone over. "This isn't a diplomatic mission, we're not spoiling for a fight. It's straight-up research, and so the makeup of the landing party is going to be a little bit different than usual. I..." He hesitated, obviously having to push the words out. "I will not be going down."

Luckily Pavel wasn't the only one to gasp at that, so he didn't feel too sheepish.

The captain constantly defied that one regulation more than any other - the captain of a starship was not to endanger himself on a landing party if his presence was not specifically required by the assignment. More often than not he also defied the regulation that said that a captain and first officer were not to leave the ship at the same time, that in the instance that a captain _was _required to be part of a landing party, the first officer was absolutely to remain on the ship to preserve the chain of command.

It said something that Kirk wasn't going down himself. The captain was scared of nothing, not even hundreds of thousands of miles of a mystery planet's dead zone.

Kirk nodded his grim acceptance of his crew's shock. "The idea here is to avoid trouble, to stay out of the dead zones and get some serious research going. And let's face it - avoiding trouble isn't my particular specialty."

No one was foolish enough to agree, but no one was deluded enough to argue.

"Spock, you're in charge of the landing party and of the research angle. You figure out every single element and compound on that planet that might be interfering with our equipment. Scotty..." He shot a faint smile at his engineer. "I know how you feel about leaving the ship, but I need you on this one. You know sensors, you know the things that might interfere with our signals, and you'll know before anyone else how to compensate for the problem when we find it."

Scotty sighed, his eyes mournful. "Aye, sir."

"Whiz kid." Kirk turned to Pavel.

Pavel sat up unconsciously.

"You get to stay on board this time around. You know the equipment here, you've worked with Spock and Scotty enough to be comfortable being their main contact up here. They get to do the grunt work, you get to process their results from the comfort of the ship. Lucky guy."

Pavel nodded, sharp, but it took him a moment, and took Kirk turning away from him and addressing someone else, before he could actually breathe. This was a level of trust, a show of confidence in his abilities, that he hadn't been prepared for.

He had to force himself to tune in, to push his instant reactions to the side.

"-knew you were going to say that, damn it."

Kirk was grinning again. "Look, Bones. This is going to be a small team and a sharp team, and if there's any chance at all that anyone gets hurt down there and we somehow can't get you back in a hurry - if anyone gets stuck in a dead zone, if those scientists turn up injured - I need my best man down there. And that's you."

McCoy scowled, but he glanced towards that black planet and didn't argue.

"Same with you, Porter." Kirk nodded at McCoy's other side, where his silent security chief sat. "Limited men here, but I need them protected. The Federation officially classes this planet as unpopulated, but there's way too much we don't know about it, and for all we know that's completely wrong. I want you down there yourself looking out for my guys here."

Pavel looked over at Porter - his first instinct was to be relieved that Greg wasn't going to be sent. But almost immediately after that he couldn't help but think that if Kirk wanted his best man down there, Porter wasn't the right one to send.

He didn't like Chief Porter, but his opinion wasn't based on anything solid. It was based mostly on the fact that Greg wasn't comfortable with him. Greg didn't quite trust him, and considering how loyal and overly-aware of the chain of command Greg could be, that was saying something.

So maybe it was with an over-critical eye that Pavel noticed Porter's hesitation, his raised eyebrows and casual smirk as he answered.

"You're telling me that we have no clue who or what is actually down there on that planet, only that two teams of people have vanished already. But you're only sparing one slot on the away team for security?"

Kirk shrugged. "One doctor, one tech guy, one science nerd, one bodyguard. That's how we keep the team small."

Porter's brow furrowed, but he sat back and waved his hand. "Your call, captain."

"Thanks for acknowledging that." Kirk flashed him a look, not losing his smile. But there was a hint of a note in his voice that made Pavel think that maybe Greg wasn't the only one not sold on the security chief.

But no. If Kirk didn't trust him he wouldn't send him on this landing party. He was putting McCoy's life in Porter's hands, and that said something. Trusting Porter with any of his crew said a lot, but McCoy more than anyone on that ship was special to Kirk.

Maybe Kirk just didn't like him. Pavel had learned a long time ago that just because a person was unpleasant didn't mean they were bad at their jobs.

Porter might well have been the strongest security officer on the ship; he was chief. Then again, something else Pavel had learned by then was that just because a person rose in the ranks didn't mean they were _good_ at their jobs.

Still. It kept Greg safe on the ship with Pavel, so he wasn't about to complain.

* * *

"_Vyhodi za menja zamuzh. Vyhodi za menja zamuzh_." Greg frowned as he paced the floor, looking around the bare quarters and wondering if he'd made the right move.

At first he wanted to make kind of a big deal out of everything - maybe replicate some food, dim the lights, get the computer to play something, like, classical or something.

But he didn't really know any classical anything to ask the computer for. All he knew to ask for was music, but the computer kept bleeting that polite fucking voice at him, asking him what composer, what piece, and what the fuck did a guy like Greg know about composers and pieces?

When he started thinking about making some kind of dinner his doubts buried him. Did he make something Russian? All he knew about Russian food was that Pasha wasn't crazy about the pirogi that came out of the replimat, but all Greg knew by name was pirogi. He thought about asking Andrei for suggestions, but Andrei had already done enough. Greg didn't want Pasha's dad thinking he was completely fucking useless on his own.

So, he thought, maybe something American. He knew the kinds of things Pasha liked, at least, but none of it seemed right. Pasha was kinda big on junk food, and Greg wasn't sure a couple of replicated cheeseburgers would set any kind of mood.

Then he got _really _corny and thought -why not cheeseburgers and pirogi both? Like America and Russia all on the same plate, like a symbol. Or whatever. But when he couldn't stop rolling his eyes at his own dumb ass, he figured maybe that wasn't the best idea.

So the quarters were silent, the table was empty, and the little replimat in his kitchen hummed uselessly without a command to respond to.

He did go ahead and dim the lights, though. So even if everything looked exactly the same as it always looked, it was in forty-percent lighting.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

He didn't have access to, like, flowers or candles or anything fancy. All he was really doing, spending so much time waiting for the end of Pasha's shift, was pacing the same plain old front room Pasha always came home to, and worrying more every second that it just wasn't gonna be enough.

Pasha deserved the flowers and dinner and music and all. It wasn't that Greg didn't want to give it to him. It's just that he was useless when it came to that stuff. The only music he ever listened to before Pasha was old rock and country shit he heard back home, and the fancier stuff Pasha sometimes played in the background while he was reading or whatever.

Greg wasn't an idiot. Really. He just didn't know a hell of a lot about some things. The problem with something like this, wanting to set up a nice night so that he could show in some clumsy way how much he really did love Pasha, was that it involved all the kinds of things he didn't know shit about.

He thought for a while about asking one of Pasha's friends, someone who knew something about something, to get in there and help. But no, in the end he didn't ask anyone. No matter how nice someone could've made the place look, it still woulda been Greg's unromantic ass standing there when Pasha got there.

Anyway, Pasha knew him by now. Better than anyone had ever known him. It was more honest without all the flowers and crap, since Greg wasn't a real flowery guy. Pasha wasn't either, for the most part, and that was the only thing keeping Greg from being fucking furious at himself: Pasha deserved flowers and wine and nice music and good food, but was happy with cheeseburgers.

Maybe that was what made him and Greg work. Greg knew the things that a guy like Pasha really thought were important - he talked to his dad first, he got the ring, and he learned the Russian for the words he wanted to say - and he had a feeling that the other things, the flowers and all, wouldn't mean much above all that.

He still couldn't stop himself from pacing, couldn't stop his gut from churning and his palms from sweating. He was pretty sure he had at least one good puke in him right then. But that's just how things were gonna have to be.

The chirp of his comm panel was the only thing that got him to stop pacing - though all it did was make him change direction mid-stride to head to the wall.

And even as he went, he couldn't help looking behind him at the dim, plain front room. This was honest, he figured, even if it wasn't perfect. Maybe Andrei had a point with his crack about how bad Greg was at speaking Russian - if Pasha could come home to nothing special, to just awkward fucking Greg, and still maybe say yes when he asked...

That would mean something. Something big, something really fucking great.

By the time Greg hit the panel to answer the comm, he was somehow actually smiling.

* * *

It had to be an issue of frequencies.

That was the only reason Pavel could think of why communicators would work on the planet's surface but scanners and transporters were thwarted. There were less likely theories – the quantum makeup of scanner waves or their quark cluster information systems versus the more basic electromagnetic waves of the communication radios and receivers, that kind of thing – but the simplest, most obvious answer was that it was a just matter of frequencies.

That was a fairly common thing, common enough that he hoped it was something else, something more interesting. Still, even earth had an ionosphere that reflected radio waves back, that absorbed some and expelled others. Every planet had protective elements in its atmospheric makeup. Perhaps in the end this black sphere was simply a much more aggressive element than Federation scientists had ever seen.

It would take a fairly detailed scan from the surface and the ship, a detailed analysis of the atmosphere, before he would know for sure. But once they knew it would be straightforward enough to design some kind of compensating dampener to overcome it.

Spock and Scotty had agreed with him, forwarding a few other ideas to add to their list but seconding the theory that frequency interference was most likely and should be the first thing tested.

They hadn't had much time to talk it over – the Enterprise had been hours away from that planet when Starfleet first called, and they only had a couple of hours after the briefing before they were close enough that the landing party had to go prepare for the trip down.

It was strange to be left behind – Pavel had a crammed padd full of initial research sent by the first two scientific vessels, and had a pile of other homework to keep him occupied in the time it took before the planetside data packets started coming in.

It would be strange when he turned off the padds in a few more hours and crawled into his own warm bed instead of shivering on some planet. Strange, but Pavel could definitely get used to it.

He was smiling as he punched in the code outside the door to their quarters - the challenge was filling his head, keeping his subconscious mind humming even as he went through the door and looked around for Greg.

The darkness caught his attention, and he looked around in bemusement. Why were the lights down so far? Maybe Greg was sleeping. It was a little late, and...

His eyes caught on the table, empty except for a clear bottle and a couple of short glasses. Vodka, Pavel recognized. One of the bottles they had brought back months ago from their shore leave on earth. They were rationing them for special occasions, though, so why...

Oh.

Oh, _damn _it.

He had forgotten, thanks to the mission and the research. He'd forgotten all about Greg asking him to come home straight after his shift, and him promising. He hadn't even bothered to comm down to him, since he was late so many times. Greg probably didn't even know about the mission.

He set his padd on the small dining table and sighed. "Computer, lights at one hundred percent."

The room lit up obediently.

"Greg?" Pavel moved through the empty front room towards the bedroom. "Greg? I'm sorry, I completely..."

He trailed off when a glance into the bedroom revealed no Greg. No one sleeping, no one sitting there irritated or worried.

Pavel frowned, looking around and then turning to look back out into the front room. It was a little late, but maybe Greg went to eat in the mess, or went to the gym.

Maybe he was really upset.

Pavel moved slowly back out to the dining table, annoyed at himself. Just that morning he had thought about how little Greg ever asked of him, and this one time he had completely forgotten.

Still, he at least had a good reason, and Greg for all his size and power and his position on the ship didn't have much of a temper at all. Not towards Pavel, anyway.

Pavel would just have to make it up to him some other time. For now, he really did have work to do, and there were people stranded on a strange planet who would rely on that work, so he put himself and even his lover out of his mind enough to sit down at the dining table and start in on the first padd full of research.


	15. Chapter 15

Getting buried in his research was nothing new for Pavel, and this was a particularly interesting case. Still, as he finished with the first scientific team's research notes about the planet they were now orbiting, and started on the second team's, he began to get more and more distracted.

Hours were passing. It was late; late enough that his body was starting to complain for want of sleep. Late enough that the mess would be closed and the gym would be empty.

But Greg hadn't returned.

He tried to keep his mind on his work, and usually that was never a problem for Pavel. But more and more as the minutes ticked by without the door sliding open, Pavel's brain left science behind and focused instead on the warmth of their bed that morning, and Greg's nervous smile and awkwardness as he asked Pavel to come home on time.

He didn't have the luxury of being able to feel guilty, not while people's lives were at stake, but it was harder and harder to distract himself from it. Why would Greg still be gone? He didn't teach his class that night, he wasn't working night shifts, not for another few months when shift schedules flipped again.

But if he was somewhere else, why didn't he leave a message?

Greg had been angry at Pavel maybe once in all the time they'd been together. Maybe. When Pavel was being a child and storming around throwing tantrums because he misinterpreted something Greg said. And Greg really only got mad, if he could even call it 'mad', because Pavel never gave him the chance to explain.

Just thinking that he might have stirred Greg to anger again was enough to make Pavel's stomach ache.

He wasn't a particularly good boyfriend, he was well aware of that. He was obsessive, temperamental, he wasn't good at talking about feelings. Of the two of them it was Greg who pushed Pavel to talk, to say something if he was in a bad mood, to explain how he felt.

Pavel could talk for hours, of course, but not about the things that mattered. He was determined and stubborn and self-absorbed.

He wasn't horrible, at least. Whenever Greg needed him, he stepped up. He could be self-focused, but he didn't think he made Greg unhappy or anything. He didn't. He made Greg happy.

Usually.

As the time ticked by his eyes left the padd and went to the silent door again and again, and the nervous flutter in his stomach started to sour into something stronger.

When the silence was broken by a chime at the door, finally, he was out of his seat so fast that he didn't even set the stylus he was toying with down first.

"Greg?" He was talking before the door was even in motion.

It wasn't Greg. Greg would have simply come in.

For some reason that made his nerves flare up all the stronger, and the strange urgency on Hikaru's face didn't help.

"He isn't here?" Hikaru asked instantly, moving around Pavel and striding in as if Greg might have been hiding behind a chair or something.

Pavel swallowed. The rumble of nerves in his gut was starting to make him nauseated. "No. He's at the gym. Or dinner, or something."

"You haven't seen him?" Hikaru faced him, almost accusing.

"I was working late on this mission. He wasn't here when I got...Why? Why are you looking for-"

"Shit. Come on." Hikaru was out the door in a flash, his hand looping around Pavel's arm and dragging him along behind.

Pavel didn't bother to protest. He went along on stumbling steps. "Hikaru."

"Something's going on," Hikaru said fast, answering the question without giving Pavel time to ask. "The landing party ran into trouble already, they called for beam-out. There are injuries."

Pavel frowned, matching Hikaru's hurried strides. "When did-"

"Just now. Five minutes ago. I was having dinner with Jim, listening to him whine about McCoy being gone."

They piled into the lift and Hikaru punched the level down to engineering. To the transporter rooms.

Hikura faced him the moment the lift doors shut. "You haven't seen him all day?"

"McCoy?" Pavel blinked, but his already-anxious brain zoomed in fast. "Greg? No, not since this morning." And when he said it that way it chilled him, made him search Hikaru's face fearfully. "Why...what does any of this have to do with Greg?"

Hikaru frowned. "He made the call."

"What call?"

The lift doors slid open and Pavel was out faster than Hikaru, jogging down the curved corridor to the transporter room.

Hikaru didn't bother answering, but Pavel didn't need him to. All he knew was that something was wrong and somehow Greg was involved.

The doors to the transporter room slid open into chaos.

Kirk was there already, yelling to be heard over a rumble of other voices. There was a small crowd around the transporter padd, a prone body, red. The blue of medical uniforms, a transport stretcher hovering behind their backs.

Scotty. Scotty was laying there, hurt, deep red seeping through the brighter red of his uniform. McCoy knelt on the padd beside him, but Pavel couldn't see through the crowd enough to tell if he was hurt or if he was helping Scotty.

Kirk's voice was sharp above the rumble, yelling into his communicator.

It was a hum, strange and busy, as Pavel stumbled in. It was only when Hikaru pushed past him and moved up to the padd that Pavel could even begin to make any sense out of it.

Greg wasn't there.

Of course.

Greg was at the gym or something, Greg wasn't there. It would have made no sense if he had been. Greg had nothing to do with that mission.

He relaxed a little, enough to back out of the way as the stretcher sliced through the air with half the medical team following behind it, fast. Poor Scotty lay there, eyes shut too tightly to be unconscious. In pain.

Without all that red drawing his attention, Pavel spotted Spock standing to the side. His uniform was disheveled but his expression was as calm as always.

Pavel went over, leaving Jim shouting into his comm unit and Hikaru helping McCoy to his feet.

"What happened?" he asked under the quieting sounds of the chaos dying down.

Spock glanced at him and then back at the group – at McCoy, Pavel saw.

"The planet is not unpopulated," he said, calm but terse.

McCoy was limping, leaning on Hikaru, and they both ignored the two nurses still hovering over them. They headed for Kirk.

Whoever Kirk was shouting at, his voice was quieting fast. He spoke into his sleeve even as he watched McCoy approaching. "Then sit there and wait for it. I don't care how long it takes, you get him back on the comm and you damn well call me the second you hear from him."

He dropped his arm, quieting for the first time since Pavel entered the room. His eyes were grim, locked on McCoy.

"You need to get looked at."

McCoy straightened, as if leaning on Hikaru was somehow making him worse. "Nothing?"

Kirk shook his head, scowling. "Nothing on the sensors, and he isn't answering hails."

McCoy cursed, low and heated.

Pavel, forgotten about in his corner beside Spock, spoke before he could stop himself. "_Who_ isn't answering hails?"

Kirk's eyes left McCoy and found Pavel, and his scowl melted into something softer. "Shit," he muttered.

It was as good as an answer, but it was the wrong answer.

Pavel shook his head. "Greg isn't even assigned to this mission."

But even though that was the truth and they all knew it, no one relaxed or agreed or spoke up to tell Pavel that of course he wasn't, it wasn't even Greg they were talking about.

Kirk just caught McCoy's other arm to brace him, and their eyes stayed grim on Pavel, and no one said anything at all.

* * *

Pavel's memory wasn't eidetic, but it was close enough that only experts in the field of conscious recall could tell the difference.

Spock left the transporter room to go to the bridge, summoning Nyota as he went. Pavel was torn between going with him and wanting some rational explanation for what the hell was going on.

In the end he stayed with Kirk as they finally talked McCoy into going up to sickbay, rationalizing to himself that whatever happened on the bridge, Kirk would be informed of it within moments.

Still, even as he hovered behind Hikaru and Kirk, still supporting McCoy between them, all he could see in his traitorous memory was the crystal clear image of a black ball of dead space that was all the sensors could see of this planet.

"Can you give me the short version?" Kirk asked McCoy as soon as the were on the lift.

"Shit," McCoy answered. "As soon as I figure out what the hell happened, you'll be the first person I tell." But he sighed audibly, his shoulders wilted between Kirk and Hikaru.

Pavel could only see the backs of their heads, but he could hear the darkness in McCoy's voice.

"We weren't there but a few hours. We'd just got done setting up all that equipment Scotty lugged down. Suddenly...hell, Jim, I don't even know what the hell those things _were_, but there were dozens of them. Came out of the trees, like..." He shook his head. "I guess they were some kind of intelligent species – they were wearing clothes, at least. I didn't hear anything that sounded like language, though, and they didn't seem to have weapons. Just...these things fucking rushed us, Jim. Shrieking like some kind of medieval banshees."

Pavel stared at the back of McCoy's dark hair, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.

"They got Scotty hard. He was closest to them, hemmed in by all his equipment. Got to me when I was going for Scotty. Spock took a few of them out, but we couldn't...not like we could run anywhere to get away. We had like a square mile of space to work with before we got into that dead zone, and most of it was flat terrain. There wasn't anywhere to go."

The lift doors hissed open, and Jim and Hikaru immediately started moving, leading McCoy out towards the wide doors into the Sickbay.

Pavel saw Scotty in one of the beds, a cluster of nurses around him. He followed McCoy, though, needing to hear the end of the story.

Kirk and Hikaru led the doctor to an empty bed across from Scotty's, and McCoy grimaced as he sat.

"Keep going," Kirk said almost tersely, his eyes moving across the aisle to the group around Scotty.

McCoy hiked his leg up on the bed, and leaned over to press some controls on the bed's panel. "I was trapped over by Scott, Spock's firing to keep those fucking beasts away from us, and I hear Harris shouting into his communicator, calling for transport."

Pavel wanted to shake his head, but his desire to keep denying the whole thing was getting overwhelmed by his own common sense.

"Took the ship a few seconds to answer, and those fuckers just kept on coming." McCoy straightened with a laser scalpel clenched in his hand. He hesitated, looking at Kirk. "Then they stopped."

"They stopped?"

"They stopped coming up on us. Didn't realize why for a few seconds, until I saw they were all tearing off in the same direction. And I could hear Harris still shouting..."

Pavel closed his eyes, sagging back against the empty bed beside McCoy's.

"We weren't gonna make it, Jim." McCoy was hushed suddenly. "Those things were like animals sweeping over us."

The high whine of the laser scalpel made Pavel's eyes open, and he watched with some distant horror as McCoy carefully sliced up the leg of his uniform.

The fact that he had limped at all, even leaning on Hikaru, seemed miraculous. The uniform, shredded as it was, had hidden a mass of gouges, thick red clotting blood and split lines of skin and muscle.

Like something with impossibly sharp claws had raked them down the doctor's leg.

He looked towards the cluster of nurses around Scott's bed and swallowed, remembering how much red he'd seen in the transporter room.

McCoy went on, hoarse, even as a couple of nurses reached them and took the scalpel from him to get to work on him themselves.

"The half a minute until we got beamed out...we'd've been dead. I don't have any kind of doubt about that. Harris must've seen it."

"He made himself a target," Pavel heard, distant, the words mumbled in his own voice. It wasn't a question, because he knew Greg. He knew what Greg would do to protect the officers under his charge.

McCoy glanced over at Pavel, sucking in a harsh breath as the nurses finished slicing around his uniform leg. "Must've not given it a single thought, as fast as it all went down. He shouted for pickup and then shouted at those little shits to come after him. And most of them listened."

"He went into the dead zone." Pavel could remember Kirk back in the transporter room saying there was nothing on the sensors.

McCoy grimaced, losing color, as they tended his leg. He sagged back on the bed, looking away from Pavel.

"Saved our lives," he said, voice thinner as he lay back on the bed. He was starting to shake, fine tremors all up and down his body.

Shock, Pavel thought.

He looked away from McCoy, facing Kirk.

"We'll find him," Kirk said before Pavel could speak, though his eyes didn't move from McCoy. "Dead space or not, we'll find him."

Pavel couldn't let himself think of that yet. He wanted to work out the story, make sense of how they got where they suddenly were, before he could start to lose himself in the possible futures.

"He wasn't chosen for this assignment."

"No. He wasn't." Kirk's eyes went to the side, sharp and angry.

McCoy's closing eyes opened. He looked over at them behind a glazing expression. "He showed up right before we left. Said Porter reassigned him. Didn't even occur to me that it didn't get cleared with you first." He flashed a small, sick, unhappy sort of smile. "Frankly, we were glad to see him."

Kirk frowned at McCoy for a long moment, then suddenly turned on his heel. He nodded at Hikaru. "Stay here, call me when there's news for either of them."

Hikaru nodded, grim and silent.

Kirk turned to Pavel. "Get up to the bridge. They're watching the sensors for the slightest trace of anyone, and Uhura should be up there by now trying to reach him on the communicator."

Pavel hesitated. He wasn't ready to dread yet. "Where are you going?"

He wasn't ready, but the steel-cold blue eyes Kirk turned on him made his argument dry up in his throat.

"We're not leaving him down there. I'll arrange a security team to go down." The same poisoned coldness was in Kirk's voice. "And then I'm going to find out why the hell Greg was on that planet."


	16. Chapter 16

The bridge was almost always quiet during beta shift. Even in the middle of assignments there was often nothing to do on beta shift except maintain orbit. It took only a skeleton crew.

But when the doors opened and Pavel found himself blinking out at the bridge, there were more people there than normal. Spock's terse voice was reciting some mantra of commands to the beta navigator, Riley. Sensor scans, Pavel could tell right away. Constant, obsessive scans of every single area on that planet that they could access.

Under Spock's voice was Nyota's constant hum, and Pavel found himself drawn to her. He moved on heavy feet behind the captain's chair, behind the weapons arrays, hugging the outside row of panels until he reached Nyota.

He thought he was already feeling about as ill as possible, but her words seemed to squeeze at his stomach in a whole new way.

"_Enterprise_ to Lieutenant Harris. Harris, come in please. _Enterprise_ to Lieutenant Harris. Harris, please respond. _Enterprise _to Lieutenant Harris..."

Again and again, with only brief pauses between to give him time to answer.

Pavel looked past her, down towards the helm and the screen.

It was strange. The viewscreen wasn't sensor-run until they called up special programs or scanner sweeps, so the view from outside the spread of the transparent aluminum screen was as boring as any orbit over any planet.

There were no dead spaces to the naked eye, nothing but flat, boring spreads of green and brown, dark sweeps of water. A normal planet, at least until they had to call on the sensors or try to beam down. Normal-looking, at least, perhaps even more geologically dull than most. No mountains that Pavel could see, no gaping canyons, no swirls of snow or lava. There were trees, huge green fields of uninterrupted forests, but no clue what might have lurked within them.

Greg was down there somewhere.

He turned back to Nyota during one of her brief pauses. He knew it was a pointless question, but he asked it anyway:

"Nothing yet?"

Nyota looked back over her shoulder, and her calm face seemed to soften somehow even more than usual. "Not yet," she said softly, reaching to lay a hand over his arm.

Pavel looked out at the viewscreen, the calm stillness of the planet's surface. "The communicators work in the dead zones," he said softly.

She didn't answer. Her hand slipped from his arm and she turned back to the panel.

"_Enterprise_ to Lieutenant Harris. Please respond."

Pavel didn't need her to say anything out loud, his loud brain was already working through the facts: the communicators worked in the dead zone, and Greg was in the dead zone somewhere. So if Greg wasn't answering, it wasn't equipment failure.

It was something else.

* * *

Frank Porter was one of the few men on the Enterprise who had served in Starfleet for years before coming aboard.

Jim's crew was made up of at least eighty-five, ninety percent cadets, pushed into duty thanks to Nero, staying in service afterwards because no one could argue that that one mission was the hardest kind of final exam, and they'd all damn well passed.

But there were some vets, too. The officers that were earthbound at the time of the Romulan attack were divided among the different responding ships along with all the cadets, and a few of them remained when the Enterprise started its five year mission.

Olsen had been an engineer for a few years. Not a chief but a crewman, for all the good it did him in the end. The original CMO, Puri, had been an old-timer, Spock of course, a handful were running the beta shifts.

And Porter.

Olsen had died, Puri died. Jim and Spock had made their peace during the first mission. The commanders littering beta shift were dutiful enough – if they had any complaints Jim hadn't heard them.

Porter was a different story, and Jim walked a strange path with him. He'd never defied Jim before, but he tended to regard Jim with a kind of bemusement. Maybe it came from the fact that he was years older, and had years of service under his belt more than Jim. Maybe some of it was Jim being hyper-sensitive because he was well aware of how hard it was for a punk like him to earn respect from the old-timers.

Maybe it was just Porter's personality. He didn't seem to have much of a sense of gravity to him, always had some little glint of amusement in his eyes. Aloofness. Something.

Whatever it was, it didn't stop him from being a good chief. His crew was a strong, devoted, fucking brave group of people, and generally when that happened it reflected on the leadership they received.

It occurred to Jim when he told Porter about his place on the away team that he hadn't actually gone planetside with Porter before. Not into active combat, anyway. Porter had a good reputation – all the men Pike ended up with for that first rushed mission were good. But Jim had yet to see it for himself.

He avoided Porter, for the most part. As much as a captain could avoid his head of security, anyway. They didn't talk on any kind of personal level, they did their jobs and that was it. Jim didn't know him, didn't always know how to approach him or how to treat him.

That day, though, he didn't have the slightest question in his mind.

"You want to tell me why the away team I assigned to this mission isn't the away team that went down to that planet?"

Porter obviously knew what was going on. The air in his office, in the whole security wing outside, was tense. When Jim had stopped the first security guard he saw and ordered him to gather up a fast, strong team to go planetside, the order was met with a terse, unsurprised nod.

But Porter seemed somehow surprised at the question.

He stood up behind his desk and frowned at Jim. "Sir?"

Jim marched up to the desk and leaned in, palms pushing into the edge of the desk. "Why did you disobey my direct order, Commander?"

Porter's temple furrowed into lines, but even then he somehow seemed to be smirking. Might've been Jim's imagination, but Porter seemed to be one of those guys who regressed in age with every grey hair. Trying to make up for wrinkles with some kind of pissed-teenager petulance.

He straightened up, looking at Jim like he was confused. But his voice was deliberate when he spoke.

"Starfleet policy gives division heads the authority to select which of their officers can and can not go on certain assignments."

That fucking line was thought out ahead of time. Porter knew just what he was doing, and just what kind of response it would get.

Jim stood stiffly, staring at him with unblinking eyes. "Unless," he said through his teeth, "that decision interferes with a direct order from that division head's captain."

Porter shrugged. "I don't consider it disobeying your order, sir. You said you wanted the best man down there. I felt that Lieutenant Commander Harris was a stronger officer than the one you selected."

"You mean you."

Porter nodded. "Doesn't shame me to admit it. Chief of Security is a different skill set than the one you needed. Harris was better for the assignment."

"Then why," Jim asked him, soft, "was I first informed of it by Harris himself, on an emergency broadcast from planetside, hours after the team first went down? If your logic was so sound why the hell didn't you come to me with it?"

Porter had a fast answer for that, as well. "Sometimes we bend the rules in the interest of the assignment, Captain. That's a lesson your crew learns - by example - almost every day on this ship."

Jim's mouth curled up a little, hearing the implication but letting it pass, for the moment.

He couldn't help but remember Bones saying that no one had questioned Greg showing up to go planetside; they were just glad to see him. Jim could say unequivocally that his own personal choice for any dangerous away mission would have been Greg Harris.

But Jim knew Porter's reputation, his record. He trusted him to have earned the position at the head of security. If his officer was good, Porter had to be better. That's how the fucking system was supposed to work.

He could almost hear Bones in his mind, mocking him for being so fucking naïve.

Porter had been tested for years prior to getting assigned to the Enterprise. It wasn't like he didn't have experience, and a good enough record to grant the promotion. He'd been tested. But he hadn't been tested by Jim.

Jim knew in a thousand different ways that his own vision of what serving in the Fleet should be wasn't all that close to what it actually was. In Porter's Starfleet, as he himself said a minute before, the chief had a whole different skill set than the officer.

In Jim's world?

In Jim's world a leader would never fucking well ask a single member of his crew to do what he himself wouldn't do. Like Porter he could admit when his officers were better than him at some things – they had to be. Jim sure as hell wasn't going to crew his ship with pilots he could outperform, or engineers with a smaller knowledge base than his.

But he didn't consider himself above or outside of their duties. Not a single officer on that ship, not a single position.

He spoke carefully. "You sent Harris down in the interest of the assignment. I can buy that. If you'd asked my opinion, I probably would have okayed it. But you didn't. You didn't ask ahead of time because you thought I'd disagree, which means you thought it was more important to send someone else in your place than it was to obey a direct order."

Porter scowled. "If you're calling me a coward-"

Jim didn't give him a chance to finish. "You didn't tell me once you'd made the choice, or after the landing party was gone. You haven't come to me now that you know that I'm aware of what you did. You can claim you were acting in the interest of the assignment, but keeping it quiet this whole time was in the interest of your own ass."

Porter clamped his mouth shut tight, and there was no trace of his ever-present bemusement suddenly.

Jim flashed a humorless smile. "Yeah, sometimes I'm a disobedient fucker, Porter, you got me there. But not in the interest of protecting my ass. That's something I don't tolerate."

"Okay, sir, now let me ask you a question."

Jim's eyebrows lofted, but he didn't cut him off.

Porter straightened, folding his arms over his chest. "From the reports we're getting down here it seems to me like my officer performed above and beyond his duties. And you yourself said you would've okayed sending Harris down if I asked. So what exactly are you pissed off about? That I didn't beg your permission first, or that I'm not the one stranded down there? Are you pissed because the officer that _is _down there is the same officer that's shacked up with your little golden boy from the bridge?"

Jim would have laughed if anything about this situation was funny. "All of the above. You think I won't admit that? You want to make this personal?"

Porter cocked an eyebrow up, and the bemusement was back in place in his eyes.

Jim smirked at the sight of it. "You know what I've realized, standing here? I knew before now that Harris would step into danger if he had to to save other people's lives, He's proven himself, he's done his job. But I don't know if _you_ would. Worse, I've got reason to doubt it now that I didn't have before."

He could practically watch the smugness drip right back off of Porter's face as he talked.

"And yeah, I know Harris. He's a pal. He's banging my navigator, as you were classy enough to bring up. But let me tell you something, Porter: Len McCoy's my oldest friend in the world, and if he'd left that briefing and decided to send M'Benga to that planet in his place without consulting me, I'd be just as pissed off."

There was a quiet beep, the strangely muted sound of an entry request.

Porter didn't take his eyes off Jim, speaking through his teeth. "Come."

The door wisped open behind Jim.

"Captain, the away team you requested is ready to go."

Jim nodded, and even with his back to the door that was enough to send the new arrival out through the door again, leaving him and Porter alone.

Jim regarded Porter. "You said it was in Starfleet regs that you could choose your own officer to send on an away team. You're right. That's the only reason I'm not going to court-martial you."

Porter's throat worked, but though his eyes glared he stayed silent.

"I'm about to send five more of your officers into danger to rescue the first one. While they're gone, you need to start working up your transfer request." Jim flashed a cool smile. "You might not've gone against Starfleet policy, but you went against mine. If you want to stay an officer you're not going to do it on this ship. Understood?"

Porter's jaw worked. He drew in a breath, sharp, but nodded once.

Jim turned on his heel and moved back through the door.

Wasn't the meeting he wanted to have – hell, he _wanted _to call Porter the coward he was and sock him in the face. But even though he didn't respect all of Starfleet's regulations, and even though he let his officers witness his own disobedience of Starfleet rules time and again, he was still a captain. Still in charge, and well aware of the requirements of his position.

Being Jim Kirk meant he was a stubborn shithead who wouldn't hesitate to do his own thing if he thought it was right. But being Captain Kirk meant he had hundreds of people living and dying at his command. Being captain meant that sometimes he had to put the health of the ship and its crew above his own personal wants.

Anyway, once Greg was back on board and Porter was on his way out...Jim could always sock him then.

If the air out in the main room of the security department had been tense when he first arrived, it was thick with tension as he stepped back out from Porter's office. His steps slowed as he moved in, and he found himself looking out at an entire crowd of red uniforms and grim faces.

No one moved, no one said anything.

For a brief, paranoid second that came from facing too many grim faces on the other side of a bar fight, he almost thought that they knew he was in their sacking their boss and they were there to avenge the guy.

But the man he had first sent to arrange the away team, a baby-faced lieutenant who was probably the brief intruder into Porter's office a minute ago, spoke from the front of the line.

"Away team volunteers reporting as ordered, sir."

Jim's paranoia slipped away in an instant. He looked over the faces of almost three dozen men and women, his expression staying neutral with some difficulty.

"I didn't ask for the entire department."

The lieutenant glanced back at the officers beside and behind him. "You didn't get it, sir. But if you'd give permission for the on-duty crew guarding weapon lockers and arrays through the ship to leave their posts, you'd have the rest of them down here pretty fast."

There was a quiet hum through the crowd, a mostly silent affirmation. There wasn't a shred of hesitation or doubt on a single face in that group.

Jim forgave himself, in that moment, for thinking that Frank Porter was a good man. He'd assumed it because Porter's officers were so damned good, and usually a leader has something to do with that.

The officers in front of him, though...seemed like they were as good as they were in spite of their chief, not because of. Which meant Jim had done the exact right thing in removing that chief from his position.

Fuck anyone who thought he was bragging when he said it – the officers on Jim Kirk's ship were the best in the fucking universe.

He cleared his throat. "If I could send all of you down I would, but I need a team small enough that we can beam you out at once in case you're attacked." He hesitated, his throat oddly dry. "But you have no idea how much I appreciate you all volunteering." He almost looked back at Porter's office, but stopped himself. "Lieutenant..."

"McCarthy, sir," the baby-faced guy nodded with a faint smile.

Jim returned the smile briefly. "McCarthy. You and four others be ready to transport in ten minutes."

"Aye, sir."

They slipped to the sides as he approached, giving Jim a clear path out the door. Right as the door opened in front of him, McCarthy spoke again.

"Captain?"

Jim glanced back, stopping in the doorway.

A less-than-subtle hand from behind urged McCarthy closer, and he slipped through the group of officers and spoke in a softer voice. "Porter was assigned to go down, wasn't he? That's what we've been hearing."

"Porter..." Jim hesitated. "Porter felt like it was his right to delegate that assignment."

"Was it?" came another voice, a fierce-looking red-headed woman Jim had been unable to not notice around the ship.

Jim flashed a smile, much less sincere than the one he'd given McCarthy. "By Starfleet's rules? Yeah."

He looked over the grim group, shaking his head a little in surprise that on the best ship in the Federation, the best crew of security guards a captain could want had been shackled to that self-centered asshole he'd just left behind. His only regret was not realizing the truth about Porter before now.

"But I don't agree. So Porter's going to transfer to a ship that follows Starfleet rules more closely than this one," he said finally.

A murmur went through the group, a few eyebrows flying up. But beyond the mild surprise there wasn't a single negative reaction to the news. This group was probably too disciplined to let much reaction slip at all, but Jim figured if anyone there wanted to protest that decision they'd do it.

Instead, he turned and left without being stopped again. And the silence was just one more sign that he'd done the right thing.

* * *

There was this drone around him, this echo of words from beside him and in front of him that had turned slowly into white noise in Pavel's head.

The constant refrain from Nyota as she tried for the hundredth time to get an answer from the planet. The orders from Spock, regular as clockwork, to scan the clearing that the away team had landed on, and the ones closest to it on all sides, again and again and again.

The reply from the helm, again and again, report results. Negative, sir. Nothing, sir. Negative, sir.

It had become this horrible kind of music, this background noise to the quickening thud of his heart, and the growing dryness in his throat, the churn of his nervous stomach.

Greg had been hurt once. It was early on in the mission, almost two years ago now. He had gone down with an away team and had come back up with a seared, smoking uniform sleeve and a phaser burn through his arm.

It hadn't been that bad, at least according to Greg and Doctor McCoy. He'd beamed back to the ship conscious, on his feet and under his own power. He was out of sickbay within hours. Every morning for a few weeks he started his day a few minutes early, running through some exercises McCoy had given him to do to help the healing, but beyond that not a single thing changed. It didn't even leave a scar, thanks to McCoy's skill.

It was nothing, really, compared to what all might have gone wrong. A wound barely worth mentioning that healed without a trace.

But Pavel had panicked when he first heard the captain's call saying that Greg was wounded, and had only stopped panicking a couple of hours later when he walked through the door of their quarters and found Greg there. He was pale and half-sedated, but he laughed with Pavel at the box of condoms and pamphlets about sex education that McCoy had handed off to Pavel. (Because it was during that time that Pavel, in his panic, had basically outed himself and Greg by jumping Greg in the transporter room in sheer relief.)

By the next week Pavel had mostly forgotten what that panic felt like.

It was only on the bridge at that moment, listening to the hum of voices around him repeating themselves into static, that he realized he had felt sick like that once before.

It seemed absurd to him right then that anyone could ever forget that kind of feeling.

He was pulled from his thoughts and the hum of white noise around him by the soft sound of the main bridge door sliding open.

"-know what the hell is happening, Jim. For God's sake."

He looked over slowly, and tried not to feel too sick at the sight of McCoy, moving carefully in beside the captain.

He had changed his uniform, obviously. He was barely even limping. But all Pavel could see were those gashes down his leg, and the hideous claws that must have made them.

"Spock." Kirk kept pace with McCoy, but spoke sharply.

Spock answered without pause. "No change, sir. No response from the planet, no sign of lifeforms, human or otherwise, in any of the areas our sensors can detect."

"The away team should be in place." Kirk reached the captain's chair Spock had smoothly slid out of when he first arrived and hit the communication channel on the arm. "Transporter room, are we ready to go?"

_"Aye, sir."_

Kirk looked out at the planet for a moment, so slow and peaceful-looking on the viewscreen. "You men be careful down there. We're taking this slowly – you find out of you can see any trace of a trail away from that clearing, let's get a sense of which direction Harris went in. Report in when you've got something, and we'll talk about how we're going to infiltrate that damned dead zone without losing track of anyone."

_"Aye, sir," _came a different voice in answer.

A voice that made Kirk smile, if only for a brief, tight moment. "We're trying to find someone, not lose someone else. Transporter room is standing by, watching as closely as we are. No heroes, McCarthy."

_"Understood, captain. We'll be careful."_

"Kirk out." Kirk tapped the communication console and turned back to the viewscreen like he could stare the planet down.

The white noise behind Pavel, the hum in Nyota's voice, changed suddenly.

"_Enterprise _to Lieutenant Harris. Lieutenant, we are sending a team down. If you can hear this but are unable to answer, return to your original transport coordinates. Repeat, we are sending..."

Pavel tuned her out again.

"Hey, kid."

He blinked and looked away from the viewscreen. "Doctor?"

McCoy was making a slow way around the panels, and it was apparent that he was on his feet far too soon. His sickbay could repair gashes and tears, but nerves and muscles needed recovery time. McCoy himself was usually the first one to mention that.

Pavel didn't say anything.

McCoy regarded him with his Doctor expression. The kind, bedside manner eyes that reminded Pavel why he had never for a moment been intimidated by McCoy.

"How you doing?"

Pavel shrugged, since the answer seemed obvious enough to not require words.

McCoy reached his side and turned, following Pavel's gaze as he looked back out at the viewscreen. "I keep thinking about Greg walking into that transporter room," McCoy went on after a moment. His voice was low. "Keep thinking how I didn't even ask. Didn't care why it was him instead of Porter, I was just glad it was."

Pavel could understand that. He would have been glad too, if he had been going down.

"He wasn't even in full uniform," McCoy said after a moment, a frown in his voice. "Didn't think about it at the time, but he looked like he got ready in a hurry."

Pavel nodded. There was no note in their quarters, no message left, no attempt by Greg to pass the word along to Pavel that he was going down. That wasn't like Greg. However it was that he found out he was getting sent to the planet, he must not have been given any time at all to get ready.

"Shit." McCoy sighed as the silence ticked by. "Tonight of all fucking nights. I should've said something."

Pavel swallowed, his eyes staying carefully on the screen. "If Porter had gone instead you might be dead now. Greg would never...and I wouldn't, either...any of you..."

He stopped, hearing his own scattered words, but a glance over at McCoy showed him that the doctor understood what he was trying to say. Porter wouldn't have done what Greg did. Scotty at least would be dead now if things had happened as they were supposed to. Pavel had little doubt of that.

Something else in McCoy's words registered, and he frowned.

"Tonight of all nights?" he repeated uncertainly. It seemed an odd qualifier, and it was less 'tonight' by then than early morning. "What do you mean?"

Doctor McCoy blinked, looking back at Pavel. He seemed almost surprised, like he hadn't meant to say those words or hadn't meant to be asked about them.

He shrugged, just a beat too late to be casual. "Nothin. Just...you might be right about how things would have gone down without him there, but I'm still gonna regret not even asking what he was doing there."

Pavel sighed and looked back at the screen, at the quietly orbiting planet. Kirk had sat in his chair by then, Spock standing quietly beside him. They were both watching the screen, which as Pavel looked on changed from a view of the planet through the transparency to a scanner view.

Suddenly it was a ball of black again, a muted area of nothingness where the sensors couldn't provide any information, and a patch of terrain in the middle. This was a sensor view, and the terrain was cloudy but Pavel knew that it was life-signs that they were focused on.

And after a few seconds, some appeared. Five, all human, appearing near the leftmost edge of terrain. That would be where the first landing party appeared, where their equipment would still be lying.

"I was late getting in," he said.

"Hmm?"

He could feel McCoy's eyes, but he didn't look back. "I realized it a few minutes before you got up here. He asked me to be on time tonight so that we could have an evening together, and because of this assignment I forgot. I worked too long and came back late, and I felt horrible."

McCoy started to speak, but they were both cut off by a sudden voice.

_"__McCarthy to _Enterprise."

"Kirk here, Lieutenant. How's it look?"

_"__We'll have to take your word that this is where the first party set up, sir. As far as we can see right off there's not a trace of what went on here.__"_

Spock replied softly, to the captain and not the landing party. "We left almost all of the equipment where it was, Captain. There should be something left."

"Unless a big pack of natives came back around and carried it off," Kirk replied just as quietly.

"Indeed."

Kirk sighed and tapped the communicator again. "Forget the equipment, focus on the terrain. We need to track down our missing man's path."

_"__Aye, sir.__"_

The communicator fell silent.

Pavel watched those five scanner signs start moving, spreading out but not too far from each other.

"You realize he wasn't there either way, right?"

Pavel looked over at McCoy. "What?"

"Greg. He was gone before your shift ended." McCoy looked over at him and shrugged. "There's too much going on right now, you don't need to be adding misplaced guilt to it."

Pavel smiled so thinly that it felt brittle. "I should look at that as a positive? That he never has to know that I broke my promise to him?"

"If you need a bright side, and sometimes people do, then sure. Make one up." McCoy leaned in and nudged his arm. "But I know you, kid. You'll probably tell him anyway."

His edged smile softened a little, before it faded away entirely. "I hope so, doctor."

The screen suddenly swelled with color.

It was such a large mass of color that Pavel's first thought was that the scanners had suddenly stopped working right. From five little dots of body heat and chemical make-up came a swarm so tightly compacted that it seemed like one great mass of brightness quickly moving up the terrain.

Luckily it took others less time to catch on than Pavel.

Kirk was already bolt upright in his chair, already thumbing his communicator. "Transporter room, _get them up!_"

"Enterprise!" A tinny voice filtered under Kirk's. "_Jesus! Beam us up, _Enterprise! _Beam us-__"_

The thin voice vanished in a hum of sound and a high-pitched tone, like feedback, that swelled around it.

Kirk was out of his chair fast. "Transporter room!"

_"__Aye, sir! We've got them! We've got...__" _There was a soft curse and a sudden rise in volume. "_We need a medical team down here!__"_

McCoy and Kirk were both already in motion, and Pavel barely had time to notice how pale McCoy was suddenly before the lift doors shut on them.

"Keep the scanners running," Spock said fast, taking over for Kirk as seemlessly as usual. "Try to get some kind of visual on these creatures. Lieutenant Uhura, play back those last few moments of sound, try to find some kind of coherence in that language."

"Language, sir?" Nyota, the most learned woman in the topic of linguistics that Pavel had ever met, seemed dubious. "All we picked up was that loud whine in the back-"

"Those are their voices, Lieutenant. At least so far as we heard them ourselves."

Nyota turned back to her panel without questioning it.

Pavel didn't for a moment take his eyes off that screen.

Perhaps he should have followed Kirk and McCoy down to engineering. Perhaps he could have been some help if someone was injured. He was the only one on the Bridge who wasn't working.

But he couldn't move.

He watched the swarm of color as it started to slide back towards the blankness of dead space, out of the sensor's range. The entire field of light, the mass of life signs, melting away as suddenly as it appeared.

It was just as McCoy had described it. A sudden swarm, dozens and dozens of creatures. Except the last time those creatures vanished back into the dead zones, they were chasing someone.

Someone who was now all alone again.


	17. Chapter 17

It took a little more than twenty seconds after the mass of life signs appeared on the scanners for the transporter room to beam up the security officers who had gone down to look for Greg.

In that twenty seconds, one had been killed. Two more were injured, badly but nothing Doctor McCoy couldn't repair.

Pavel hadn't been allowed in when he finally made himself move off the bridge and down to sickbay. He had caught sight of three occupied beds, two hovering with nurses and one still and silent. But Kirk had stopped him at the door and ushered him back to the lift.

"There's no point, Pavel," he'd said quietly.

There was blood on his uniform. Dots of it, scattered, as if he'd been there when the wounds were inflicted. It spoke to how chaotic it must have been in Sickbay and the transporter rooms, trying to keep those men alive.

The one who died was a younger officer, a Lieutenant Pavel had met once or twice but didn't know well. Jacob McCarthy. Kirk seemed to be rather affected by his death, though of course he took any loss of crew hard. After he ushered Pavel safely to his quarters he planned to go right back up to his own rooms to call earth, to inform McCarthy's family.

Pavel didn't ask for details. He was still in that numb place, a surreal, distant sort of fog. It was strange, almost off-putting, that he couldn't manage a real reaction.

Things had simply happened too fast, that was all. He went from not even knowing that Greg was gone to being told that Greg was in danger, and then lost, or dead, in the course of minutes.

And no one could help him get his footing and adjust to it all, because no one could tell him what was actually happening. All he had was a planet that he couldn't see, and messages that went unanswered.

Pavel's mind, the way it had always worked, didn't do well with not knowing something. He had always gone in search of answers if there was anything he didn't know. He had crammed his head full of everything he could fit in there simply because he couldn't stand the idea of not knowing.

Maybe it was because of that, because he could almost look at this in terms of the same desire for knowledge that he'd battled since he was a child, that he was able to stay calm.

Maybe it was just that he had absolutely no idea how to react to everything that had happened.

It was morning as Kirk left Pavel to his quarters. His shift would have begun in another hour or so, but Kirk had already told him not to bother showing up.

He didn't sleep last night, obviously, but he didn't feel tired. He felt blank.

He ended up standing there for a while, just a few steps inside the front room of his quarters, as his mind tried to work through everything. But his brain was as useless and blank as a scanner sweep of that planet below him.

His padds were still on the dining table, still scattered where he had left them when Hikaru knocked on his door the evening before. His research. Wasn't it strange that he didn't immediately go over there and start firing those padds up and learning about the place that had Greg trapped?

He didn't, thought. He didn't move. His gaze drifted over them and didn't even pause. He looked over the vodka bottle he hadn't put away, and past the small sofa and little hard-backed armchair, the blank vid screen, the gym bag in the corner.

This was Greg's quarters. It was strange sometimes to realize that. Pavel's room was technically down a level with most of the other ensigns. Smaller than this, one room, and a bathroom shared with the room beside him.

He hadn't slept there in months – by then it was so crammed with old research and half-finished experiments and bits of projects he was working on with Scotty or Spock that it wasn't functional as anything but a storage room.

These rooms were his home on the ship and had been from the start. Everyone knew about it, though it wasn't official – Starfleet didn't officially let any non-married officers room together, but of course Kirk didn't care.

If Greg never came back, the quarters would be reassigned. Pavel would have to clear out his cramped little storage room.

What an utterly absurd thing to think about.

Pavel moved slowly across the front room, his gaze catching and staying on that gym bag, so carelessly dropped beside the couch.

He picked up the bag, and sank down on the couch, laying it half on his lap.

If it was daytime hours and Greg wasn't in uniform, odds were good that this bag would be hanging off his shoulder. He had worn thin spots through the shoulders of some of his undershirts, friction from the strap. He always seemed to be on his way to or from the gym, or a class, or a private session with Kirk or Hikaru or any of a dozen of his students.

He loved the act of being physical. It was just the other morning...God, just that morning, just twenty-four hours ago...that Pavel had lay there with him in bed thinking such soft, awed thoughts about his lover's body, his physicality.

Now there was nothing but silence and a bed that hadn't been slept in.

He shook that thought away fast – it was far too fatalistic, and Pavel tried to be an optimist. He wasn't going to start thinking about this silent room and his own uncertainty about Greg's fate as status quo. That wasn't what his life suddenly was, it wasn't a thing he had to get used to. It's just how things had been for a little while, and might be for a little longer.

Nothing more than that.

He found himself unzipping the top of the packed duffel bag, wanting some distraction. No doubt half the clothes Greg shoved in there were dirty, and Pavel had more than enough time to run the recycler a few times.

A beep distracted him as he reached in for the balled-up socks already threatening to spill out of the bag.

He looked up and saw the flashing light of the vid screen. A call.

An off-ship call?

Frowning, he rested his hands over the bag and cleared his throat. "Computer, connect call."

There was a slight hum as the dark screen brightened with sudden light, and the face waiting for him, searching the room until they found him, made him freeze.

"Papa?"

"_Pasha!" _Andrei Chekov didn't waste a moment. "_You have news to tell me!" _

Stunned, Pavel pushed the gym bag to the side and stood, moving around the narrow coffee table closer to the screen. "I...how did you know?"

"_I have my ways, _moj syn_." _But Andrei was smiling broadly under his beard, so wide that his eyes crinkled from it. "_Come, tell me everything! Where is Gregor? I told him I would be checking up on him!"_

His steps slowed to stop halfway between the sofa and the flat vid screen on the opposite wall. He opened his mouth and shut it.

Maybe it was Greg's name, or the smile beaming from his father's face that meant his father really _didn't _know, or just his father suddenly being there in his view, but with Pavel's next breath something in his chest seemed to almost cave in.

He drew in another sharp breath, his throat working. "Papa..."

Andrei was intuitive at the best of times, and eerily perceptive when it mattered. It didn't take more than that moment for his smile to vanish and his stance to change.

He leaned in towards the screen, lines appearing in his forehead. "_What is it, Pavel? What's the matter?"_

So Pavel told him.

And as he recounted Greg's strange absence last night and the sudden news that he had been gone for hours, and all the preceding events of all the hours until his father called, his words began to quicken and his breaths tightened, until by the end he was rambling like an over-anxious child.

"-and I know that the captain will not send anyone else down, not after someone died so suddenly. Not without knowing whether he is alive or dead. But they call down to him every minute, almost, and no one has heard...they think that the communicator stays silent because he's dead. Because there were so many of them and they kill so quickly. No one has said anything to me, but I know they think it. And I know what will happen."

"_Pasha." _His father had sat back again during Pavel's rambling words, and he was a direct opposite to the smiling man who had appeared on the screen. His eyes were grave.

He wouldn't lie to Pavel. He wouldn't bother with tact. Andrei was a blunt man and the Chekovs prized their honesty with each other. He would tell Pavel that of course no one else would go down there, that they couldn't lose more men to recover one.

The needs of the many, as Spock himself said often. Greg was one man.

Greg was lost, that was what Andrei would say. Like the first two landing parties that they were there to recover, Greg would simply be added to a list of missing people until the mysteries of the planet could be solved and they could all be recovered.

Of course his papa would tell him that, because that was the truth. The captain hadn't said anything about it, but Pavel had been thinking around the issue for hours. Starfleet would never condone risking men in a situation like this, without proof that Greg was even alive. And Kirk, who rarely cared what Starfleet would or wouldn't condone, would agree with them in this. Because he sent a party down, and a man died, and the captain had to message earth, to inform the family.

"He might be hurt," he said, his voice so thin it hardly sounded like him. "He might not be answering because he just _can't_. His communicator might have broken. He might be just beyond the reach of the scanners, bleeding. He might die now, as we sit here and do nothing."

Andrei sighed, low and grim. "_Your captain is a good man. He will do anything in his power, will he not?"_

"Of course, but there isn't enough in his power to do!"

"_You would do more?" _

"I would do anything," he answered without hesitation, with all the sincerity in the universe.

Life without Greg was simply a thing that he could not accept. Of course he would do more. But his role in this was to research, to plot equations and test theories, to play with frequency levels and dampeners. To do _nothing._

These creatures, whatever they were, were dangerous. And they seemed to be getting worse. The first two times those civilian landing parties had gone down they had spent time, days, on the planet. They had managed to lose themselves in the woods, in the dead spots, before they stopped answering their comms.

Even the first _Enterprise _landing party had been given hours to set up equipment, to begin taking readings. But then those creatures had come into the open for the first time to attack them, and when the security team went down they were attacked even faster. The creatures were deadly and they were obviously watching and waiting.

Against them, against the threat of death, Pavel was to remain on the ship reading his padds and writing his notes.

Whatever the solution to the atmospheric problem around that planet, it wasn't a thing that would be solved in a day, even a week. Just diagnosing the cause would take time, and there was no guarantee that a solution would be found once they knew that cause.

Pavel's role in the coming days, then, would be to do his reading and theorizing in the silence of empty quarters that didn't belong to him. To listen for updates from the planet, to hope constantly, and be constantly crushed, when the planet remained silent and the messages went unanswered.

One day ago, twenty-four hours, Greg lay with him in their bed. Now his life was this.

Pavel knew even as he realized all of those things...he couldn't allow that.

He couldn't do nothing. Not this time.

He looked up suddenly, focusing on his papa's face on the viewer. "Papa..."

Andrei held up a hand to silence him. He studied Pavel through the viewer, and his eyes were sad. Strangely, deeply sad, as if he could suddenly feel all of the millions of miles between them in some tangible way.

Pavel drew in a breath, because his papa understood. Again, always, his papa knew.

"_You would risk your career. Your life." _

Pavel nodded. "I'll be smart."

"_I do not doubt that."_

"I have to, papa. I can't...he is the only..." He faltered suddenly, unsure if he could put into words all that he was feeling.

Andrei regarded him. "_My Pasha...this is a sudden-" _

"It isn't sudden," Pavel interrupted. "It's the only choice I can make. It was only...shock, or hope, that kept me from making it the moment I first realized that he was trapped down there."

He wasn't used to making spontaneous decisions. Particularly not that kind of decision. Still, even though he was entirely out of his comfort zone, even though this had nothing to do with any of the things Pavel was skilled in or capable of, he knew it was right.

"He would go," he said quietly, more to himself than his father. "He would do it."

"_Were it you trapped down there?" _Andrei nodded, but it only seemed to make him more troubled. "_He would." _

There was no doubt of that, and the reminder only made Pavel's sudden decision that much easier.

"I love you, papa, and I will try to be safe. But...I can't do less for him than he has already done for me. I love him. I think I am only right when I'm with him."

He hesitated then, studying his father's pale face. There was dismay there, a hesitation that his loud and blunt papa rarely showed. As if he were trying not to say something.

Pavel swallowed. "Maybe you think I'm too young to know, when I say things like that, but..."

Andrei drew in a breath. _"Tell me, Pavel, do you know how to ask the one you love to marry you in your native tongue?" _

Pavel hesitated. "I...what? Of course I..."

"_So does he." _

"He?" Pavel frowned at the screen, but drew in a sharp breath as he realized. "Greg?"

Andrei nodded. _"He asked me to teach him and I did, happily." _

"He asked you to teach..."

For some reason Pavel thought suddenly of a few hours ago, the words McCoy seemed to not mean to say about how this shouldn't have happened tonight of all nights.

He thought about Hikaru, summoned away from the bridge by McCoy earlier that day, coming back with strange words about how Pavel was so lucky, and his strange choices always seemed to work out so well.

When Pavel said he didn't understand what Hikaru meant by his words, Hikaru told him that he would.

And his father. His father called him minutes ago, beaming in anticipation, wanting news and expecting to hear something good.

Greg wanted him to be home on time. He wanted to talk. He brought out the vodka, and he seemed so nervous that morning.

_"If I hesitate in encouraging this," _Andrei said quietly into the stark silence, _"it isn't because I think you're too young to know what you're saying. It's because I trust that you _do_ know. Because even _I_ know, from so far away." _Andrei rubbed his face, pale and drawn and a shadow of the beaming man who had first appeared on the screen. _"I know better than you think."_

Pavel had to pull himself out of his thoughts in order to focus on the viewscreen.

He had never seen the expression that looked back at him then; at least he hadn't seen it on his father's face.

_"Had I been offered a choice, to give my career or my life to save your mama when she...had I even been allowed to think that there was a chance that I could save her..." _Andrei's hands fell from his face. _"But you are my son."_

Perhaps Pavel had seen that expression once before: as beams of transporter light cleared and revealed Spock, reaching out for someone he loved as she fell away from him, as he realized he would never be able to catch her.

His father was the single most wholeheartedly supportive person Pavel had ever known. Pavel had gone to his father, an awkward twelve year old boy with a mind that was far too big for him. That boy had told his father that he wanted to leave. The Conservatory in St. Petersburg, and then Starfleet. And then the universe.

He had gone to his father, this solid, simple man who had already lost his wife and would never have another child, and announced that he wanted to leave him behind.

And in response his father grasped his shoulder as if he were already a man, regarding him with a solemn frown and proud eyes, and asked if Pavel needed his help to get started.

The man who regarded Pavel now through a viewscreen, years later and with a universe between them, seemed to show all the grief he hadn't shown back then.

Pavel drew in an unsteady breath. "I will be smart, and careful. I will find him, and I will find how good a language teacher you are."

Andrei chuckled, pained. _"I warn you, then - I only taught him the Russian word for 'yes' in regards to your response. He was instructed to only listen for that word, and if he hears anything different he is to surrender you to your ship's doctor to seek help for whatever troubling mental state you would have to be in." _

Pavel smiled, his eyes burning. "When we are back here safely I'll let him tell you how it went."

_"Good." _Andrei was still pale, but his sadness had either faded back or been carefully covered up. He nodded once, sharp, and waved a hand in dismissal. _"_Uvy, bozhe moi. _The Hero of Ishevsk, risking life and limb and his fancy starship career in the name of love. I expect everyone here will see it all as very grand." _

Pavel's smile wilted. "Papa."

_"You will contact me when you've returned, yes? So go." _Andrei sat back with a smile. _"I will speak to you again soon. Be safe, my son."_

Pavel couldn't bring himself to answer. He nodded, the burning in his eyes slicing two wet trails down his face.

The image on the screen, his papa's too-careful expression, flickered and went dark.

* * *

He was just going to leave, to go to the upper deck where the auxiliary transporter sat waiting and unwatched. It was the best way to handle something like that, he assumed. A spontaneous decision should be followed through with quickly, after all.

But the talk with his papa had filled him with the strangest feeling. It seemed, he felt after his father vanished from sight, inevitable that Pavel was to go down to that planet. Whether he would come back or not, whether he would find what he was looking for, those things were as uncertain as ever. But that he was to go down was entirely inevitable.

He didn't think about it twice, but it did give him a heavy, melancholic sort of feeling. And so when he left their quarters he didn't go right for the transporter room.

The lift took him up, past sickbay where he would need to spirit away some sort of medkit in case Greg was hurt when he found him, and part security where he would need to stop and get a phaser to take with him.

When the life doors opened he stepped out onto the Bridge.

Things were relatively quiet - they were simply in orbit, after all, which left little to do from one minute to the next. Hikaru sat at the helm, his shoulders stiff, beside the familiar red hair of Ensign Haines, a relief navigator Pavel knew, though not well.

Nyota sat at her usual station, and Pavel wondered if she had left at all since the night before. Spock, too, stood at the science station, perhaps monitoring scans from the planet below.

The captain wasn't in sight, but only a few moments after Pavel stepped onto the bridge, a door from one of the small conference rooms opened and Kirk emerged.

He was tense, his hands fisted at his sides, his face colored in anger.

Pavel wondered if he had been talking to Starfleet Command. He didn't much doubt it.

Kirk spotted Pavel before he could say anything about what had angered him. His steps slowed, his hands relaxing from their fists with visible effort. "Pavel. Didn't I give you the day off?"

Pavel nodded even as others noticed him there. He felt Hikaru's eyes from the helm. "I'm not here to work, sir. I just wanted to check on..."

"We'll call you, kid." Despite the quick words there was a gentleness in Kirk's voice. "The second anything happens, you know we'll call you."

Pavel tried to smile, but it felt strange and strained and so he gave up the attempt. He moved slowly down to the helm, and Hikaru's solemn dark eyes watched him as he approached.

"You doing okay?" Hikaru asked softly when Pavel was near enough.

Pavel nodded, looking past him at the viewscreen. "As okay as possible, I suppose." He hesitated, his hand finding Hikaru's shoulder without turning his eyes from the viewscreen.

Hikaru was his best friend. His first real close friend on the Enterprise, and the second person after Greg that Pavel felt truly knew him and cared for him as he was.

He had many friends, of course. People who came later, who got to know him during the course of this long assignment. But Hikaru had been first, and best.

"Hikaru..." Pavel spoke quietly, unable to look own at his friend. "Whatever happens, I wanted to say thank you. For everything you've done for me and Greg. And just for me."

He wanted to say more, but he was so awkward at that sort of thing. And if he said too much Hikaru would understand why he was saying it, and might stop him.

As it was Hikaru's voice was already wary when he answered. "There's nothing to thank me for. I'm your friend, it's my job."

Pavel drew in a steeling breath and turned, dropping his gaze to Hikaru.

Which might have been a mistake, because he could tell that Hikaru already sensed something. Hikaru looked up at Pavel as if he could look through him, as if he could pick out his thoughts.

Pavel smiled faintly. "I want to say it anyway."

"Pavel." Hikaru's brow creased suddenly. "What's going on?"

"Nothing. I might have...I might lose Greg," his voice caught strangely on Greg's name, "and I didn't say enough...to him. So I think I should say more to...to the people who..." His smile went tremulous.

Hikaru relaxed a little bit, though his gaze didn't waver. "You don't have to, Pasha, come on. There's nothing you could say that I don't already know. And I bet you anything Greg would say the exact same thing."

Pavel looked up, looking around at the whole quiet Bridge. Nyota was still hunched over her board, Kirk and Spock were in private conference by the science station.

When he stopped by sickbay he would pay a visit to Scotty, and no doubt McCoy would be there, already working again and probably against his own doctor's orders.

It was inexpressively strange, feeling like he was saying goodbye to these people. He couldn't say goodbye, of course. He couldn't say much of anything. He said too much already to Hikaru.

"Hey." Hikaru reached for his arm. "Maybe you should ask Jim if you can work your shift. Maybe being alone right now isn't the best thing for you."

Pavel shrugged, looking back at Hikaru with a small smile. "There isn't enough happening here to distract me anyway."

Hikaru glanced out at the slowly drifting planet. "Maybe not. Okay, but I'm going over for dinner after my shift, okay?"

Pavel had to fight not to give himself away. He nodded. "That would be good."

"Okay." Hikaru studied him for another moment, then let go of his arm and sat back. "

Pavel turned and moved behind the helm back to the doors of the lift. He couldn't say anything else and expect to get away with it, but maybe he didn't really need to say goodbye. Maybe if he was safe and careful, as he promised his papa, he might actually find Greg and get them both back to safety. Maybe this was just one rash decision that he would have to answer for later, and not really any sort of ending.

He was almost to the lift doors when the humming calmness of the bridge was interrupted.

"Captain!"

It was Nyota's voice.

Pavel froze where he was, the sick twist of hope in his stomach now an old familiar friend.

"What is it, Lieu-"

Nyota slapped a control on her panel so hard that Pavel could hear it.

And then the air over his head, the hum of the still Bridge air, was filled with a hoarse, low voice suddenly piping in over the speakers. Pavel turned so fast he was hardly aware of it happening.

"-_rris_. _Repeat, this is..._" The disembodied voice from the speakers was cracking, uneven. Hurt, or exhausted. Or both.

Alive.

Pavel found his hands pressed over his mouth, his breath frozen in his chest, fearing any sound or movement might spook that voice away.

"Enterprise. _Come in, please." _


	18. Chapter 18

One of the weirdest things about his job was how _fast_ shit went down sometimes.

Even coming down to the planet on this assignment had happened too damned fast. One second Greg's up in his quarters pacing the floor worrying about Pasha's shift ending, then he's getting called down to talk to Porter, and ten minutes later he's on a transporter pad and Spock tells some engineer to 'energize' and he's down on some fucking planet.

It was too fast, but he was used to fast. Day to day life on a starship was pretty predictable, but when shit went down in space it went down hard and fast and dangerous, and so Greg and guys like him were trained to snap into action, not ask questions, not delay.

You saw what needed doing and you did the job.

When Porter told him that some officers going planetside needed someone to watch their backs, Greg didn't hesitate. Wasn't his job to ask why they were going, wasn't his job to ask why he was picked for the mission on his day off when there were a dozen guards working shifts who needed some experience on-planet.

Sure as hell wasn't his job to ask Porter if he could take a minute and call up to his quarters to let his boyfriend know what was going on.

Yeah, he had plans, and some little pissant voice in his mind wanted to bitch and complain. But for all that it was quick and hard and unfair, Greg loved his job. He was damned good at it. So he went without question, and he watched the backs of the officers who were trying to do their own jobs.

Wasn't until he was down there and they were setting up all these pieces of equipment that he found out it wasn't an in-and-out kind of mission, it might even be a few days. It was harder then to shut up that bitchy little voice in his head, but he managed.

Spock and Scott had to fill him in on what the whole thing was about. He didn't understand most of it, of course, but he figured he understood the two most important points. One, to stay the hell where they were, because for some reason if they wandered out too far the ship would lose track of them and they'd be on their own. And two, none of them had a damned clue what they were looking for or what might come looking for them.

It wasn't any kind of normal mission, and he couldn't have said he was all that happy with it. It was one of those hurry-up-and-wait jobs, where he rushed to get down there then had to sit on his hands for hours or days while the science guys did science things. If something happened it would happen hard and fast, so he had to stay on his toes, but if nothing happened then that was hours of sitting on his ass on planet for nothing.

Not that he wanted anything bad to happen, but that was the trouble with his job – he was pretty much useless unless something went wrong. Security was the one group that everyone hoped never had to lift a finger.

At least he was down there with some pretty okay people. Spock he didn't ever have anything to say to, really, but McCoy was cool with him (even if he still owed him one for earlier that day with Sulu), and Scotty was a riot even if Greg never knew what the hell he was talking about.

For the first few hours down there on that planet – and it was a pretty normal, boring-looking planet for all the warnings he was getting about it – he stood back and watched the horizon all around them and let the other guys get their science on.

It was pretty calm, quiet. Daylight, reaching dusk as the hours went on, which felt weird since it was past dinner time on the station, but Greg didn't mind it. It was warm out, there was no sign of any kind of sun overhead but it was light and clear like an early fall day.

Behind him came voices every now and then, talking back and forth, a lot of stuff about readings and measurements and information packets. They were setting up all these boxes and scanners and shit, kind of walling Scotty into this three-sided cave of beeping sensors. Spock and Scotty seemed to be doing most of the work, McCoy only seemed to be sticking close so he could give Spock shit.

Greg stood by and watching the treeline – three sides of them were forest, and the fourth was a pretty wide-open stretch of grassy land that he didn't focus hard on. They'd see anyone coming for a mile down that way, but the trees were another story.

Trees were tricky on new planets. Sometimes the trees or undergrowth could be dangerous, sometimes the insects, animals. On strange planets it was hard to know what to listen for, what to worry about. On a lot of planets, earth too, it was silence that was a bad sign. When the animals shut up it meant something bigger and badder was around. But on some planets it was just the opposite, where things were mostly quiet until the animals starting sounding their little alarms.

Too dark, too many places to hide, too easy to get lost. He didn't like forests.

Eventually McCoy got bored with pissing Spock off and came around to chat with him – mostly about how the place gave McCoy the creeps – and they started to make some noise about setting up shelters and calling it a night.

And then, just like always with this damned job, everything went to shit.

* * *

It started with this high-pitched sound, this weird echoing whine like an alarm or speaker feedback or something, and then the forest on the left of them, closest to Scotty's little electronic cave thing, suddenly started moving.

Greg's whole job relied on awareness, observation, and action. It wasn't as simple as some people liked to think. Wasn't just a matter of seeing someone with a phaser and taking them out, boom. His job was to protect, and from one situation to another the best way to protect changed.

Sometimes it meant taking out someone with a phaser, boom. But sometimes it was trickier. Sometimes there were a lot of attackers, a lot of people needing protection.

It was important that Greg, that any security guard, not get too caught up in thinking about how to go. It was important to take in everything, process it, and start moving all in a split second.

Greg was good at his job.

* * *

Too many of them. That was his first and last real coherent thought.

Too many of them – looked like the forest was moving but it wasn't. There were so many of them, coming from behind every tree and bush and dark shadow, that it seemed like the treeline itself was approaching them.

Too fast, too many. Had to be an attack. Too close to Scotty and the equipment, and Greg was running towards them even as he was pounding the communicator on his wrist.

Too many for him to fight. No choice. "_Enterprise! _Four to beam up! Now!"

Then his phaser was in his hand and he was taking them out. One, two, three. The closest ones to Scotty went down fast and hard.

Too many, though. Even as he heard another phaser starting to fire behind him he knew it wasn't enough.

Sometimes you fought, sometimes you fled. Protection could take either form.

"Now! Now! Beam us up, _Enterprise!"_ Even as he called he fired. He ran.

They were strange creatures, kind of animal and humanoid all at once. Short, thin. Looked unarmed but as they got closer to Scotty their arms came out, their hands aimed to tear at him with fierce-looking claws.

Fuck. Greg was too far. The phaser couldn't go fast enough to take out all of them.

Plan B. When you can't get the people away from danger, get the danger away from people.

Scotty went down. His little electronic cavern filled with the fierce little shits.

Greg aimed a long phaser sweep over the mass of them even as he barreled towards the bulk of the group.

"Hey, you fuckers! Come here!"

There was no order to the mass of them. They shrieked in that high-pitched whine and it might've been a way to communicate. It took Greg reaching the edge of them and barreling through the first ones before they started mostly turning his way.

They were small, light. When he charged they bounced off him like they were made of rubber. Hands reached for him and claws scraped at him, but mostly he only had to shove and they went flying.

"That's right, you little shits, take on somebody who'll fight back!"

He drove through the edge of the group just until that whole sea of howling faces was turned to him, and then he turned.

Three quick bounding steps and then he was plunging through an undergrowth of thin green leaves and pounding into a cool, dark forest.

The squeal of their voices seemed to double in volume as soon as he was in the woods, and behind him came the thunder of a thousand quick, light feet all approaching at once.

He couldn't stall enough to look back. Couldn't make sure most of them were coming. Had no clue if Scotty was dead, if the others were in any shape to help him. He still didn't hear the whine of the transporters, though he knew that the last few seconds had taken on the deceptive stretch of adrenaline that meant it was probably still less than a minute since he called for beam-out.

Too fucking long, though.

Didn't matter. He was running and they were after him.

He hadn't let himself feel it at the time but more than a few of those little shits had got him with their claws. Couldn't worry about that, though.

His job was suddenly easier than it was a minute ago. He'd gotten most of the little bastards to come after him, he'd protected his team the best way he could.

Now all he had to do was come out of it alive.

* * *

The woods were dark and thick. There were these short, thick-stumped trees everywhere that kept him swerving again and again until he had pretty much hopelessly lost all sense of direction, and there were grabby strands of vines or roots or something growing close to the ground that grabbed his feet every other step and tried to slam him down.

Those shits that were after him, whatever the hell they were, were quick, but within minutes the steps behind him were quieter, further back.

No endurance, maybe. Shit, he wasn't about to complain.

Adrenaline kept him moving for a while, and those footsteps behind him, those occasional shrieking sounds, kept him moving even longer. Greg did a hell of a lot more weight-lifting than cardio, but he could run four or five miles before he started feeling it.

All he had to do was get these fuckers off his tail, then he could get his bearings, get back where he came from and get his ass out of there.

He had to shut off his communicator a while back when the ship started hailing him and those fuckers could hear the little voice bleeting from his sleeve. No point answering yet – the ship couldn't see him where he was, McCoy and Spock and Scotty had been really clear on that when they first filled him in on everything. Had to get safe, then he could think about contacting the ship.

But as the distance between him and those footsteps grew, the trees around him got darker and darker and his feet started stumbling more often.

Tired already, shit. Might've been something in the gravity on that planet – higher gravity wore a body out faster. Adrenaline was wearing off, too, maybe. It was fucking cold under those trees, but he was sweating so hard he could feel it drip down his skin under his clothes.

Okay, he had better stamina then those little shits, but this was their planet and he didn't have much doubt that if he stopped they would sweep over him soon enough.

Had to find a place to hide, somewhere they couldn't get to him.

Tricky, since he didn't know anything about them. Hiding only worked if they relied on vision above their other senses. If they had anything like a Ferengi sense of hearing or a Tellarite's sense of smell he'd be fucked no matter what.

But his answer came after just a few more minutes, when his eyes caught on a barrel of a tree in the distance. It stuck out higher than most of the short little trees around it, and the branches were pretty high up off the ground.

He didn't pause, didn't bother thinking about it too hard. He didn't have enough options to not try one.

He hardly slowed down, tearing right towards the dark bark of the thick tree. Digging his feet in the last few steps he crouched and then hurled himself upwards with all the momentum he could keep up.

He snagged one of the bottom branches of the tree easily, and then it was just a matter of hauling his heavy ass up until he was off the ground, perched awkwardly on that branch.

Good strong trees, at least, and the branch hardly swayed under his weight. He grabbed at a higher branch, pushing himself up without taking even a moment to pause of get his bearings.

The footsteps were getting closer, but the higher branches were thick with leaves and he only had to push himself up a few more feet before he could barely see the ground under him.

There, finally, he came to a stop.

He crouched at first, holding himself as still as possible as he caught his breath and tried to slow his heart back down. The wind pushed through the leaves with the same dry paper rattling sound they made on earth, but he ignored it to focus on the footsteps down below.

He had no doubt those little shits could climb – those claws of theirs were thick and rough from use, and they seemed intractable. They could probably climb the trunks of these trees like jungle gyms when they wanted to. That meant his only chance in hell was for them to not look upwards.

They had fallen far enough behind that their chase was more scattered than it had been. When the footfalls got closer they also spread out, first coming from the left, then underneath him, then from everywhere.

Jesus, there must have been a hundred of the fuckers. They called to each other in those harsh screams of theirs, and each time it made Greg tense.

Perched in a fucking tree like Tom god damned Sawyer, Jesus. But none of the footsteps paused under that heavy trunk, and no alarms sounded. No claws bit into the bark or started coming upwards.

He braced where he was, shutting his eyes and focusing hard on quieting his breathing and keeping his balance. It took a long time – maybe it felt longer than it was – before they stopped coming, and then he was listening to their footsteps fade again off into the distance.

Jesus fucking _Christ. _

He didn't move much, just shifted around to a thicker, heavier branch and sat his ass down, leaning against the trunk of the tree as much as he could. It was awkward but less precarious than crouching, and he realized it was time to take stock and figure out his next move.

He didn't trust the communicator yet, so he left it off. He didn't know a hell of a lot about the planet, only that he was completely screwed unless he could get back to where they first beamed down. From that tree branch he couldn't even have said what direction to go back through.

He'd give it a while, an hour, and make his way down and see if there was some obvious path he could follow back. He doubted those thin little alien shits left much of a trail, but his dumb ass must have. Enough that he'd notice, maybe.

It was damned cold without the sun, and within minutes he was shivering, clenching his jaw tight to keep his teeth from chattering. Cold and dark by then, and he was probably crashing from the adrenaline rush.

Okay. So it was too dark to see much anyway, and he was wiped out from his little jog through the woods just now. Maybe he would just chill out on his branch or whatever, let his body get over itself enough to make a getaway.

He was still sweating, he realized as he shifted into a less awkward position, leaning back against the trunk enough that he could relax and not worry too much about falling. Still sweating hard, it was still creeping over his skin and dripping down his legs.

That didn't seem right to him, but his brain seemed to be going through the same chills his body was, and his thoughts seemed to go kind of slow and hazy.

Maybe he ran further than he realized. He didn't know and there wasn't much point in guessing, and anyway his entire body seemed to want to shut down instead of thinking about it anymore.

So he let his eyes shut and everything faded back and he only had time to hope he didn't come crashing down in his sleep.

* * *

His eyes snapped open.

Greg always woke up fast, since he was a kid, maybe thanks to growing up with four piece of shit brothers that no one wanted to fall asleep around.

Right then it was a good fucking thing, since if he woke up more like normal people he'd've probably rolled right off that branch without realizing.

It was still dark when his eyes opened, but lighter than it had been. Dawn was coming.

Somehow he was still pretty steady on that branch, which was probably a fucking miracle. His neck twinged with pain when he looked around - wasn't any real healthy way to fall asleep on a tree branch.

But...shit. As soon as he became aware of that little twist of pain, his spine spoke up loud and clear so he'd know just how wrong he slept. Then his ass got into it, numb and aching and cold from the hard, knotted branch.

Nothing a good stretch wouldn't ease, as soon as he was sure it was safe to climb down. And hell, he expected his legs to be pitching a bitch thanks to his little marathon hours ago.

Come to think of it, he couldn't really feel much from his legs at all.

Greg rolled his shoulders and neck awkwardly, grimacing, and blinked down at his strangely numb lower half.

His breath stuck in his throat, and something dark and grim curled up in his gut.

He'd thought he was sweating. Shit, he thought the run had tired him out so much he'd been dripping sweat.

Must have been from his charge at the whole crowd of attacking aliens, when he was trying to get their attention off Scotty. He'd run right through, yelling like an idiot and swatting at them like they were annoying little insects.

But they'd been swatting at him, too.

Blood didn't show on the black uniform pants, but those pants were fucking shredded in more than a few places and there wasn't much mistaking the thick, clotting red staining his legs through the tears.

Shit. Too much. He hadn't even paid it any mind at the time, fucking adrenaline kept him moving, kept him from even noticing.

That was why he crashed so hard. That was why he couldn't feel his fucking legs.

Shit. Shit, shit, double fucking _shit. _

Okay.

Well.

It was what it was.

Didn't change anything. He had to get down out of that tree and drag his ass back to a spot where the ship could see him and get him the hell out of there.

It made his stomach twist, looking at his shredded pants. Those weren't scratches, those were fucking deep, and he'd been laying there bleeding out for...

He could feel it, feel more, the longer he sat there. A strange rising worry made him aware of sharp stinging pain up his side, across the small of his back, up his sleeve, though the shirt hadn't torn so maybe that one wasn't so...

Jesus.

Greg felt his breaths coming out faster and shut his eyes for a minute, focusing.

He wasn't some hysterical child, damn it. Okay, he was hurt worse than he realized, but nothing changed, damn it.

Get down, get home. Those were the only two things he had to do.

He pushed his eyes open and looked out across the slowly lightening leaves in the heavy branches around him.

Focus, Harris, you fucking wuss.

He shook his head to clear it, and stared hard down at his shredded pants and bloody skin. Okay, whatever. He'd been hurt worse before.

He'd also been two minutes away from a sickbay at the time.

Greg blew out a breath, bracing himself. It was only pain, in the end it didn't even matter.

He reached out - neck and back and side and arm all screaming at the movement - and clamped his hand around a higher branch. Bracing himself, he started to turn himself on his branch bed and look around for the next lowest foothold.

Thirty seconds later he was still panting, still fighting the urge to puke down his shirt, and the ache in his back didn't stop him from driving his spine so far back into that tree trunk it was probably making him bleed harder.

Okay. Okay, moving wasn't a good idea yet.

Shit, who the hell thought climbing a fucking tree was a good idea?

Okay, he needed...what? Water, something to settle his stomach. A few good bandages and a fistful of pain killers. One of McCoy's miracle hypos. A week in bed.

And what did he have?

He pried his eyes open and waited for his vision to clear before he looked down at himself to take stock.

He had jack shit. A phaser in his belt that was probably all but drained of charges. Didn't even have his pack with him. Shit had happened too fast, he wasn't ready.

He couldn't even feel his fucking legs.

Panic threatened to well up again, and again he slammed it down into the shadows again.

He had a phaser. That was a start. Phaser at his belt, communicator on his sleeve, and...

His throat worked as he lifted his arm. Even his arms were too heavy, too slow. Blood loss, his mind told him more than happily. He'd been sitting there draining blood for hours now.

He told his mind to go to hell.

He drew in a breath and twisted the control, turning the communicator back on.

The voice was almost immediate, and quiet but so loud in the silence that he flinched.

"-_in, Lieutenant Harris. This is the _Enterprise, _Lieutenant Harris, if you can hear this please respond."_

He knew the voice. Uhura. Everyone on the ship knew her voice. She sounded lousy, though. Hoarse. Like she'd been calling for hours.

Right, the planet was behind ship time. Up there it was day shift, probably.

He waited another minute, through another recitation in Uhura's pretty, tired-sounding voice.

Nothing in the forest under him or around him seemed to stir.

Fuck it, anyway.

He drew in a breath and lifted his heavy arm close to his mouth. "_Enterprise..._" He winced and cleared his throat - he sounded even worse than Uhura did.

"This is Lieutenant Harris...repeat, this is..." His voice crackled out from under him. As fucking useless as his stupid bleeding fucking legs.

He sagged back against the trunk, arm sinking, but he sucked in a breath. "_Enterprise_...come in, please."

* * *

The words seemed to echo around the bridge for a moment, or else Pavel was just imagining some sort of tunnel, some echo chamber that kept that hoarse voice dwindling.

Then Kirk snapped to life, slapping the panel of his chair and answering in a voice that Pavel could the smile in. "_Enterprise _to Harris. We hear you, Greg. Jesus Christ, man, you took your time speaking up."

Pavel held his breath, looking up into the air as if Greg's voice would appear visibly overhead.

_"Sorry, sir. Been distracted."_

He swallowed and moved back down the ramp away from the doors. He wanted to be happy, to crow in triumph and beam the way the captain turned and beamed at him.

But he couldn't.

It was Greg, yes, but he sounded...

Kirk didn't waste time, even through his splitting grin. "Okay, Harris, give us an update. Where the hell are you?"

There was a pause. Every second of it thumped hard like Pavel's quickening heartbeat in his ears. He had to press his lips together to keep from yelling out.

Kirk's grin vanished in the space between one of those thumping heartbeats. "Harris, report. What's your status?"

A strange rasping sound came out of the speakers, like the communicator being dragged across something rough.

When Greg answered his voice was lower and harsher. "_No idea, sir._" There was a scratchy rumble that Pavel almost didn't recognize as a chuckle. _"There's some trees around. That help?" _

Kirk shot Pavel a frown.

In that look Pavel had the instant and stark realization - his voice over the speakers changed nothing.

All it told them was that Greg was alive. While that was enough to make Pavel feel light-headed with gratitude, it wasn't enough to find him, or to bring him home.

Greg's voice rasped over the speakers. _"Captain. The landing...Scott, and..."_

Worse with every passing word. Pavel's nervous relief was draining away under the same clenching fear he'd carried with him all night.

"They're alive," Kirk answered, grimness in his voice. "A little banged up, but Scotty'll be on his feet soon and the other two already are."

Another pause, another heavy silence.

A hand caught Pavel on the arm, and he jumped.

Hikaru looked back at him with solemn eyes, squeezing his arm gently. "Say something."

Pavel shook his head, though every instinct made him want to jump to Kirk's chair or Nyota's station and make Greg answer them.

But...there was an order to this. A procedure. If he broke that, if Kirk let him break that, it meant something horrible. It meant that the grimness in Kirk's face and Hikaru's eyes meant that Pavel wasn't letting himself realize something. Sometime in Greg's voice, or...

No. That was impossible. Five minutes ago Pavel had been on his way to sneak down there and rescue his lover however he could, or die trying.

This, this standing on the bridge still warm and safe, listening to Greg's wretched-sounding voice get softer and weaker...

No. That wasn't an alternative to his earlier plan. That wasn't something he was prepared for.

Another heavy rasp from the speakers above them, and Greg's voice croaked overhead. _"Sorry, sir, I...I don't think-"_

Pavel heard it then. The thing in Greg's voice. It wasn't the pain or the exhaustion. It was resignation.

"_Captain...could you...tell..."_

Pavel was at Kirk's side, somehow, in the next heartbeat. He pushed Kirk from his way, grabbing the controller on the communication panel and holding it as if his life depended on it.

"Greg."

There was a rush of air from the speakers and a very distant sound. As if Greg had answered Pavel, spoken Pavel's name, from far away from his communicator.

Pavel spoke clearly, firmly. Somehow, though his thoughts were wild, his words were focused. "Greg, you will stay where you are. We will come find you. There are...plans, we're making plans, and we will come down for you. If you can't...if you're stuck where you are, it doesn't matter. We will come to you."

There was no answer.

He clutched the panel that much more tightly. "Answer me, Greg. We're coming. We will find you, I promise you that. And you know that I wouldn't lie. I will find you. Do you hear me?"

Air hissed overhead, distant sounds.

"_Pasha..." _

It wasn't any louder than a murmur.

Pavel fought to stay focused. He stared down at the control panel intently. "Tell me you understand, Greg. I'll find you. I promise."

Another hand, a firmer hand, landed on Pavel's arm.

He didn't turn, didn't care what sort of objections Kirk wanted to voice. He didn't speak, though, even when the silence ticked by, moment after moment.

After a hideous long silence, Greg spoke finally. And perhaps Pavel was imagining it, but he seemed to sound somewhat stronger.

_"Tell you what...I'll meet you halfway."_

Pavel grinned at that, relief escaping him in a rush of air that was almost laughter. "See you soon, then."

Silence came from overhead, and Pavel knew that Greg wouldn't answer. Not this time. He sounded as tired as a person could sound, he needed to rest.

He stepped back, shaking off Kirk's hand, his smile still in place.

Kirk and Hikaru were nearly side by side, looking back at him with grim faces and solemn eyes.

Pavel faced them. "I do not lie to him," he said firmly.

Kirk shook his head, though he looked as if it pained him to do it. "I can't send another team down. Not until we can-"

"This is Starfleet orders?" Pavel asked.

Kirk frowned. "They're my orders, Pavel. We've lost one officer already, and four more are lying in sickbay. I don't leave my people behind, but we are not going back down there without more information about this-"

"I regret to inform you, sir, that I have decided to resign my commission from Starfleet."

Kirk's jaw snapped shut, but he seemed more frustrated than surprised.

"Pavel..."

Pavel didn't even turn to Hikaru. "I have enjoyed serving with you, but my resignation is effective immediately. And now, as a civilian, I am requesting my right to transport from this vessel onto the nearest habitable planet."

"Pavel," Hikaru said again sharply. "Knock it off. The Captain's right and you know it - we can't just keep sending people down there to get attacked."

Pavel looked over at him then. "You can send me."

"For God's sake, Pavel, no one is going to-"

"Where do you think I was going after I left here? Do you truly think I came up to the bridge during a shift to thank you for your friendship as a way to make conversation?"

Pavel didn't enjoy it, the way Hikaru's skin was paling, but he enjoyed even less when the people who knew him best failed to take him seriously.

He included Kirk in his next words. "There isn't a sensor or a panel on this ship that I don't understand. There is nowhere you can shut me away that I can't get out of, and there is no guard you can place on the transporter rooms that I won't get around. Send me down there willingly or I will send myself down."

"Pavel...you're going to go down there and you're going to get killed." Hikaru spoke more softly then, perhaps remembering that Pavel was, at best, mulishly stubborn. "That won't do Greg any good, and you know it."

"Sitting here until the mysteries of a planet's atmosphere have become clear enough to resolve won't do him any good either. You heard him, Hikaru. He is..." Hurt. Exhausted. Giving up, perhaps, for a moment there before Pavel spoke to him.

Weak and wounded, and knowing how Greg hid his own weaknesses so carefully from everyone, Pavel had no doubt that he was worse off than he sounded.

Greg would die if left alone. Pavel was certain of it, and he knew his Grischa.

He met Hikaru's eyes. "I will meet him halfway, one way or the other."

Hikaru's lips thinned and he looked away, jaw clenched.

Kirk let out a breath suddenly. "Fuck, kid, when you want to be a pain in the ass you really don't fool around."

Pavel's eyes turned to Kirk, neutral and steady.

Kirk shook his head after a moment, mouth twitching just slightly on one end. "Okay. Before you go resigning from the damned fleet...Spock, Sulu, let's have a quick conference down in sickbay. Maybe Scotty got some information from the sensors before those things cut the job short. Maybe we can come up with some sort of plan that doesn't involve death or dishonorable discharge."

* * *

Pasha.

Jesus, for some reason...Greg had been trying to stay so damned professional, so on-duty, that he hadn't let himself think about Pasha too hard.

Suddenly, just from hearing his voice over the communicator, Greg's mind was completely turned towards him.

He'd been a second away from telling Kirk that he didn't think he was gonna get out of those trees on his own, but...come on. Shit. He was scratched up, he lost some blood, he was stuck in a damn tree. So fucking what?

Pasha was out there waiting on him. Pasha wanted him, and Greg never let Pasha want a damned thing without trying to get it for him.

So what did he need? Bandages, pain meds, water.

The water would be on the ground, some place or another. The pain meds...eh. He was a big tough security guard, what the hell did he need an aspirin for?

Bandages were less easy to skip over, but the minute he realized that he also realized that if he used his head for a minute he had some options there.

He didn't want to lose the pants - they were torn, yeah, but running around the forest on a strange planet bare-assed just wasn't gonna do it for him.

His shirt was another story.

The undershirt was too thin, and if the day didn't warm up he'd get pretty damned cold without his uniform jacket on. But he didn't hesitate. Finding the place up his side where one of those shits had nailed him with his claws, he clenched a cold fist around the tear in the jacket and started the slow, painful process of shredding heavy Starfleet-issue fabric into makeshift bandages.


	19. Chapter 19

Pavel was generous, he thought, when he made the decision to give the crew around him a total of three hours to come up with an alternative plan before he set out on his own.

But three hours came and went and he didn't even notice, still stuck in a corner of sickbay with Scotty and Spock debating how to best attack that planet and rescue Greg.

Kirk and Sulu had left them after a while, after their talk became more engineering and physics jargon than actual words. But Sulu made Pavel swear not to do anything stupid without reporting to him first, and Pavel made Kirk swear that any communication from the planet, from Greg, would get piped up to his own communicator too.

And debating the most feasible ways of finding Greg down there in that endless black sensor-dead terrain took up more time than he accounted for.

The only difference, really, between that and any other debate Pavel loved to get caught up in, was that he wasn't enjoying it.

Greg was in his mind the entire time. He spoke words about atmospheric interference and quantum field dampeners, but his mind chanted at him, low and constant, Greg's name.

He was hurt. He was gone, and hurt, and Pavel had promised to meet him halfway.

The three hour mark passed without Pavel realizing it, but eventually he simply shut his mouth and stood up as Spock was in mid sentence.

"We won't solve this fast enough," he said simply, since that was the only thing their hours of discussion had made clear. "I can't wait any longer."

Scotty, still pale and bedridden but showing no other ill effects from his attack, only shook his head. "It takes a bit of time sometimes, laddie, you've got to be patient."

"I can't." Scotty hadn't been on the bridge, hadn't heard Greg's weak voice. "I'm sorry."

"Mister Chekov." Spock spoke more evenly, as always. "While I understand the need for urgency, I suspect that you haven't let yourself fully consider the problem at hand. For instance, if you were to calculate your odds of actually locating the Lieutenant, given the size and scope of the planet and the lack of direction available to you, you would understand why solving this technical sensor problem is the most expedient way to proceed. Even then we aren't taking into account the interference from the demonstrably violent native beings and how they might slow your search."

That was true enough, but then Pavel _had _calculated his horrible odds already. He simply didn't care.

"My odds of finding him down there are better than the odds of finding him by sitting on this ship and doing research," he said simply.

He wouldn't be talked out of this, despite the respect he had for Spock. He had given rationality a chance, but they were no further along than they had been before they even went down to the planet's surface.

Spock studied him. "You have always acted on intellect more than emotion, Pavel. The chance exists that we will find a solution to this problem in short time, and once that solution is found it will take mere minutes to locate Lieutenant Harris. You must realize that your chances if you go down to that planet are dismal compared to our chances of finding a solution here."

"And how many hours should I wait? How many days? My odds of finding an answer up here will get better with time – his odds of still being alive when we find that answer get worse with time. It doesn't even out." He held up a hand even as Spock opened his mouth to respond. "Not to me."

Spock was wrong about Pavel in one important way: perhaps Pavel was given more to listening to his mind than his heart, but there was one giant exception to that rule. From the first moment Greg held out a hand to help him up off the pavement, Pavel had gone to him heart-first.

Sometimes he found it hard to reconcile those two sides of him – one time, months ago, he had let his mind take over in response to something Greg said. He had thought it over too hard, and ignored the feelings that should have told him that Greg's meaning would never be what his mind was telling him it was. He had slept in his old, lifeless quarters for almost two weeks before he realized his mistake.

Sometimes the two sides clashed, but this time he had no doubt which inner voice to listen to. Spock was right – the odds of finding Greg down there were dismal. Pavel understood that well enough.

It simply did not matter.

Staying still was unacceptable. When there was only one possible path ahead, a person couldn't waste time dreading the odds.

"Should I be worried about you two upsetting my patient?"

Pavel turned away from Spock's considering gaze, looking up as McCoy approached Scotty's bedside.

Scotty shifted under the thin bed sheet and gestured at Pavel. "The lad's about to do something cock-eyed. Upsetting me's the least of his worries."

McCoy glanced at Pavel, eyebrow arching.

Spock spoke up, to Pavel's surprise. "You understand how an illogical mind works, Doctor, perhaps you could explain to Mister Chekov why his transporting down to an unknown planet and wandering blindly in hopes of finding a single person might not be a good idea."

Doctor McCoy glanced at Spock, then turned sharp eyes to Pavel. "You think Jim's gonna let you go down there?"

"I have no intention of waiting for permission," Pavel answered simply.

"Uh huh." McCoy studied him with that cynical, dark-eyed stare of his. "So you're gonna go awol just to get yourself killed on a wild goose chase."

Pavel fought back a sigh and simply nodded.

"Well, hell." McCoy humphed out a breath. "Sounds like a plan to me."

"Doctor." Spock spoke sharply before Pavel could even register those words. "This is no time to be flippant."

"Who's being flippant?" McCoy turned his gaze to Spock even as he moved in and punched the display on Scotty's diagnostics screens. "I was right there with the two of you when those things attacked, you think I'm feeling anything like _flippant _about that damned planet?"

He turned to Pavel, a humorless little smile cocking his mouth up to one side. "You're a smart kid, you've already thought about the consequences."

"I have," Pavel agreed, studying the doctor in surprise. "All of them."

McCoy raised a hand at him, turning to Spock. "There you go."

Spock regarded McCoy coolly. Pavel watched them, and couldn't tell who surprised him more – McCoy for taking his side, or Spock for protesting so vehemently to keep him on the ship.

"He's an adult, Spock. You might think it's a dumb decision, but he's still got the right to make it. And let me just go ahead and point out that I've seen the emotional side of you real close, Mister Stoic, and I sure as hell know that if it was Uhura trapped down there you'd do the exact same thing."

Spock's expression didn't change, only seeming to harden that much more.

McCoy didn't seem bothered. "Every other day on this ship we go throwing ourselves into something stupid for some idiot reason. At least this time I can understand his reason." He flashed another drawn smile. "He's allowed to risk his own life. The needs of the one don't outweigh the needs of the one. Seems to me they're about equal."

Spock didn't answer, stiff.

The doctor's eyes shifted back to Pavel, and his smile faded. "You do realize you're gonna get yourself killed, though, right?"

Pavel couldn't stop himself from smiling back. It was small and sad, but it was a real smile. "I've considered all possible outcomes," he answered.

"Yeah, I'll bet." McCoy reached out suddenly and rested his hand on Pavel's shoulder. "He's a hell of a good man, Pavel. Someone ought to try."

Pavel nodded, swallowing against a tightening throat. "I know. Thank you."

McCoy squeezed his arm then turned away, moving back to Scott's bedside. "Okay, Scotty, I'm gonna keep you here until morning – these machines might say you're good to go but knees are tricky little bastards and I'm keeping this one elevated a few more hours, just to be sure."

Pavel stepped back as McCoy reviewed the rest of the diagnostics readings with Scotty.

He glanced over at Spock, who was looking back at him, ignoring McCoy and Scotty. Pavel wasn't surprised that Spock didn't understand, that he disapproved, but McCoy was right. If Nyota was down there Spock's logic would sway in another direction.

If McCoy was down there, Kirk would already be in the midst of those forests.

Maybe they didn't consciously realize that about themselves, and that was why they seemed so baffled by Pavel's choice. Maybe they were a bit overprotective when it came to Pavel – he was young, after all, the youngest on the crew by more than three years. More than that, he was an intellectual sort of officer, the kind who was supposed to stay on board in safety and conduct experiments.

Whatever it was, he wasn't going to let it stop him. They could think of him as different if they wanted to, but it didn't make it true. He i_could/i _be guided by his emotions over his intelligence. He was allowed the same feelings as the more headstrong people around him.

Greg was a good man, and someone had to try.

Spock spoke suddenly. "The captain asked that you report to him before making any rash choices. I will escort you to the bridge."

"Very well." Pavel looked back at Scotty and McCoy. He smiled as sincerely as he could.

Scotty barely managed a grimace in response. McCoy just waved him away, but Pavel didn't need any more from the doctor after McCoy defended his choice the way he did.

He expected Spock to continue his line of reasoning during the short trip to the lift and then up to the bridge, but Spock stayed silent. He stood still, hands behind his back in the lift, and didn't even look Pavel's way.

It was a feeling Pavel was unaccustomed to, this little niggle of worry that he had disappointed one of his mentors.

But that worry left his mind the instant the lift doors opened and they stepped onto the bridge.

"-_know what he's gonna do."_

Pavel froze when he heard that voice, rough and quiet and rasping over the speakers. Kirk had promised to let him know if Greg got in touch with...

His eyes shot to Kirk, and he realized in an instant that this wasn't an accident.

Kirk turned when they walked in, and he sat in his chair with a grimness in his eyes that hadn't been there when he left sickbay.

"Looks like now's the time, Greg." Kirk offered Pavel only a tired shrug and a gesture to come up and join him.

"_Is he there? Pasha?" _

Pavel moved slowly, a dark feeling rising inside of him. Kirk had contacted Greg. Why?

He moved up to Kirk's chair, speaking when he was near enough for the communicator to pick up his voice.

"I'm here, Grischa."

There was a pause, and Greg's voice sounded more hushed when he spoke again. "_Captain says you're gonna do something dumb."_

Pavel shot a glare at Kirk. "I'm coming to find you."

_"But...you're coming alone? Pasha, you don't-"_

"Wait." Pavel's glare only hardened when he realized that Kirk meant for Greg to talk him into staying in safety, since no one else had managed it.

Kirk had the decency, inadequate though it was, to be solemn about it.

Pavel spoke tightly. "I'm not having this talk in front of a dozen crewmen." He turned on his heel and marched behind Kirk's chair up to Nyota's station.

She was on her feet before he arrived, her eyes wide and sad. She held out a hand, her earpiece dropping into his palm when he reached out. "Turn this on and he'll bypass the speakers."

Pavel would have smiled if his anger had allowed it. "Thank you."

He sat down at her chair, turning his back on Kirk and Sulu and the rest of the staring, silent bridge crew. He worked the earpiece into place and thumbed the switch. "Grischa?"

_"Hey." _Greg's voice was even softer piping directly into his ear, and Pavel felt his eyes shutting and his focus tunneling on the sound of that hoarse voice. _"Just you and me now?" _

"Yes," Pavel answered, his own voice rough in his throat. "Whatever the captain has told you...I have to come find you. You know that."

Greg was quiet for a few seconds. _"I...I know that if things were reversed right now I wouldn't let anything stop me from getting down here. But...I can't just..." _His voice faltered.

Pavel had to fight the urge to glare over at Kirk again.

_"I can't just say yes to this, Pasha. I didn't think...earlier, when you said...I didn't think about how dangerous it'd be."_

There was no reason for this. No need to worry Greg when he was already hurt and stranded and alone. No reason except selfishness.

Between Kirk doing this and Spock arguing so intently, Pavel knew he ought to have felt...something. Flattered, or appreciated, or something. Something besides furious.

He bent his head, eyes still sealed shut so that he could focus on Greg. "If it's a choice between life without you or death along with you..."

_"That's no choice. Nothing that ends with you getting killed is any kind of choice." _Greg sounded exhausted, that gravel voice so drained that there was no real force behind his words. Pavel knew he meant it, though. _"I'm not...I think I'm safe where I am. Safe enough. You've got time to...whatever, to science out whatever you need to, whatever the hell Kirk's talking about with the sensors. Right?"_

Pavel smiled to himself faintly. "I know you too well, Greg. You're a horrible liar."

Another long pause.

_"Yeah. Okay. I'm...I'm not doing too good. But that doesn't mean...I can't let you..." _

Pavel drew in a breath, opening his eyes to look blankly at the panel under his bent head. "You know that nickname that I've started to call you, the one you ask the meaning of all the time?"

_"The Russian? My..._chudo_ or something? Yeah."_

Pavel hunched in on himself even more, as if somehow it closed he and Greg in tighter together, protected them from the watching eyes around him.

"Do you remember...at your brother's funeral..." He hesitated, trying to steel himself.

This felt too much like a goodbye. He wasn't about to accept that, but he did have to acknowledge that there was a chance.

Greg didn't speak in the pause, and Pavel went on after a moment, soft into the mouthpiece of the communicator.

"I told you about my father. How he called me a miracle child because I have this brain. I said that it was no miracle, my growing up in a loving home and being successful now."

He closed his eyes, trying to imagine Greg was actually there in front of him, listening. Or that Pavel was down there, holding on to Greg as they waited for transport. But he didn't know enough about that planet to imagine it. He didn't even know if it was day or night where Greg was.

"I said that you, coming from such a horrible place and such monstrous people, you were the real miracle."

_"That what those words mean?" _Through the strain in his voice Greg almost sounded like he was smiling.

In some ways speaking like this was harder than just going down to the planet and facing whatever came would be. But Pavel could picture exactly the self-conscious little smile Greg would have on his face, and it made him brave enough to go on.

"My miracle," he answered. "It's easier for me to say those kinds of things in Russian. I imagine it sounds less sappy that way."

Greg made a soft, amused sound.

"I don't just use the words because of how you grew up. I use them because of what you have done for me." The next breath he drew in was ragged. "I refuse to let you go, Greg. I can't. If you want to forbid me I understand, but I will come anyway. You must know that I don't have a choice. Did you have one, when it was me in trouble? When the Klingons took us prisoner all those months ago?"

_"Didn't wait around long enough to figure out if I had a choice or not," _Greg answered, low. _"But you see so much more than I do, Pasha. You can figure out plans I couldn't ever think of."_

Pavel laughed , more breath than sound. "Right now I can't. I can't do anything but want to be where you are." The terse little laugh faded away. "I'm sorry, Greg. I don't want to make you worry when you're already in danger. But I can't sit here any longer. Not even like this, being able to talk to you but not see you here."

He let out a breath. "I wish there was an easier answer. I wish...I can _talk _to you, it should be such an easy thing to be able to find you. But..."

Greg chuckled, hoarse. _"I'm shouting, not waving."_

Pavel frowned. "What?"

_"Like you said once. You were trying to talk to me about that work you're doing, the black hole thing. Remember?"_

Pavel could almost smile at that. He did remember - after keeping his work and his relationship separate for so long, he found that once he started sharing his work with Greg it was a relief. It was enjoyable, and often surprisingly helpful. Greg would ask questions, trying to understand the advanced physics or engineering concepts Pavel worked with so often, and explaining the basics of those concepts could often point Pavel to something flawed in his thinking, some path he hadn't tried yet.

"I don't remember those words, though. Shouting and waving?"

_"You were talking about light and sound, things moving like particles or waves or whatever. Remember? Waves spread out, like sound." _

Pavel couldn't tell if he himself was short on sleep or if Greg was getting less and less focused, but either way something in his mind told him to pay attention to this.

_"I remember,_" Greg went on, voice soft and uneven, _"'cause that's what made me understand it. I mean...to see something you have to look right at it, but to hear something you just have to be near enough, the sound'll come to you. So...its easier to hear somebody than see them. Right?" _

Pavel frowned. He opened his eyes, looking absently down at the blinking panel.

_"Shit, I dunno, might not even be remembering it right. I'm kinda dizzy right now, and I'm hardly a fucking genius as it is." _

Pavel sat up, lifting his head. He turned around in Nyota's chair, his gaze locking on the viewscreen. The silent orbit of the planet below.

He pictured that same planet as it appeared on the sensor display - an endless sea of black and small pockets of clear terrain.

Communicators sent out strong signals. They had to, to reach an orbiting starship from inside the atmosphere of a planet. And when calling on a general channel, as Greg was, those waves weren't directed towards anything in particular. They traveled in all directions, radiating from the center point until they were far enough to fade away, well out in the deep of space.

Pavel blinked at the viewer, wondering.

_"Pasha?" _Greg sounded hushed in his ear. _"...you there?" _

"Greg..." Pavel swallowed, getting to his feet slowly. "You're wrong."

_"What's wrong?"_

"You. _You're_ wrong." Pavel tried to hesitate, to take a few minutes before jumping on this sudden untested notion in his head as if it was the answer for everything. But he stared at that planet and heard Greg breathing raggedly in his ear and he knew.

He _knew._

"You just said that you're not a genius, and you're wrong!" He tried to fight a laugh, but it bubbled up and out and he grinned at that horrible planet on the viewer. "You're completely _brilliant_!"

He pulled the earpiece from his ear and shut it off. "Greg?"

Greg's voice came back through the speakers overhead. _"What's going on?"_

"You stay right where you are, okay? You just...just stay as safe as you can, I'll contact you in a few minutes."

_"I know that voice," _Greg answered with a faint chuckle. _"I'll sit tight, go be a genius."_

Pavel looked around as the speaker crackled and went silent. He spotted Spock standing over by the captain, and he darted over. "It's not the frequency!"

Spock's eyebrow rose.

Pavel beamed at him and Kirk. "Captain, can we get the sensor display on the viewscreen?"

Something in Kirk's face seemed to relax, and he nodded towards the helm. "You heard the man."

A moment later the planet's image flickered, replaced by the blackness of sensor failure and the rough edges of a few bubbles of clear terrain.

Pavel pointed, turning to Spock. "It's got nothing to do with frequencies or interference. The communicators work because the transmissions spread in waves until they reach one of these patches. They don't bypass the atmosphere, they simply spread out until they find a hole to pass through!"

Spock regarded the viewscreen. "That is possible."

Pavel fought back a laugh. "Of course it's possible. It's _simple, _and we were too busy trying to tear apart the makeup of the atmosphere to consider a solution so basic."

Kirk moved around to Pavel's other side. "Sounds like you think that's good news, but how's it going to help us find anyone?"

"It won't let us find _any_one," Pavel answered, enthusiasm not dimming in the slightest. "But it will let us find Greg." He moved in close to the viewer, scanning the few patches of terrain. "Sound travels less quickly than light. It travels quickly, of course, but it isn't instant. All Greg has to do is send out a constant transmission. If we can orbit around the place where the landing party was attacked, we can determine exactly where the transmission reaches us the fastest."

"It would be only fractions of a second difference," Spock said slowly, approaching Pavel and the screen.

"Plenty of time, the computers can detect fractions of nanoseconds." Pavel grinned over at him. "We find the nearest gaps in the atmosphere, the places where Greg's transmission comes in the quickest, and triangulate using the fractions of seconds difference between those spots."

He turned, grinning back at Kirk. "We should be able to figure out exactly how far from each of those gaps he is, and that will give us his location. It will be rough, but we should be able to get his location down to...perhaps a square mile? Maybe even less."

Kirk smiled back at him, but his eyes went past Pavel to the screen. "And then what?"

Pavel blinked.

"We won't be able to use sound triangulation to beam him aboard."

"No." Pavel shrugged. "We'll still have to find him and bring him out of the dead zone. I will transport down as I intended. If I transmit with my own communicator it will make me visible to the ship, and you can guide my direction from up here."

Kirk's smile faded, and his head was shaking even before Pavel was done.

Pavel didn't care. He had been about to leave either way, how could he even hesitate now that he had a plan to actually find Greg?

But Kirk spoke up quickly. "The last thing I need is to get Greg back up here somehow and have to tell him that I let you get yourself killed down there. No way in hell I'm letting you go a-"

Something inside of Pavel, something tense and drawn tight ever since Hikaru first came by his quarters looking for Greg, snapped at that moment. Something he had stifled for the last two days, something that seemed to shoot through his veins with the next beat of his heart. He plummeted from euphoria to rage, instant and total.

"You will _stop_ telling me no, Captain! I am through hearing it. I am through trying to convince people that Greg is just as deserving of rescue as anyone else on this ship!"

He had no idea what sort of expression was on his face - he had never felt his muscles harden the way they were at that moment. Whatever it was had Kirk gaping at him openly.

"Do you realize that since he went missing, since he ran into danger to save your crew, only one person has said anything to me that makes any sense at all? Only Doctor McCoy. He is the only person who has said that someone ought to go after Greg. I am going to be that someone, and if I die trying it than _good. _It's no more than he's risked for me, or for anyone on this ship! He deserves to be saved!"

Kirk stared at him.

Pavel swallowed, the silence creeping up thick around him as he clamped his mouth shut. But what did he care? Let people stare at him, let Kirk charge him with insubordination and send him to earth. If it got Greg back that was all that-

"So. Yeah. What I was _starting_ to say, before I got interrupted." Kirk's eyes stayed hard on Pavel, but his mouth twitched. "Is that there's no way in hell you're going down there alone."

Pavel blinked.

Kirk turned his bemused gaze over to Spock. "How long will it take you to triangulate some kind of position?"

Spock regarded Pavel. "Perhaps an hour to orbit the site of tha landing party and determine where his signal is strongest."

"Okay then. You get on that. Chekov, keep your loud mouth shut for an hour and help him out. Sulu."

Hikaru spoke from somewhere behind Pavel. "Yessir?"

"Get that sword of yours and meet me down in security. I've got an idea that might give us a little time on the surface without those bastards down there realizing we're there."

"Glad to, captain." Pavel didn't have to turn to hear the grin in Hikaru's voice.

Kirk flashed an easy smile at Pavel, as if the last few minutes had been as casual as planning a picnic. "Between you, me, and Zorro back there, I'd say we've got a good shot at getting to him without anyone playing martyr. So for fuck's sake, stop trying to get yourself thrown out of the fleet. I can only handle so much public insubordination before I start getting grouchy."

Pavel drew in an uneven breath. "Yes, sir."

Kirk moved in, clamping his arm around Pavel's shoulder and steering him along towards the door. "Have some faith in us, kid. No one wants to leave him down there, and we're all aware of how many times he's saved our asses."

Kirk released him as they got close to the door, turning and walking backwards the last few steps as he gestured Pavel back towards Spock. "Besides, I've already lost one security chief over this mess. You really thing I'm ready to write off Porter's replacement?"

Pavel stopped where he was, watching Hikaru join Kirk and the two of them head out the door.

Right before the doors slid closed behind them, Pavel thought he heard Kirk's strange snickering giggle, and something that sounded like _'Chief Cupcake_.'

"Mister Chekov."

He turned to Spock as the doors closed, feeling like his emotions had been pulled in so many directions in the last hour that he was close to shorting out.

Spock nodded back towards Nyota's station. His expression was, like always, calm, but there was a note in his voice. "Perhaps you'd like to call Lieutenant Harris and tell him to start transmitting for us."

Pavel moved quickly, his grin returning as he realized that he got to tell Greg again that he was coming for him, but this time he could say it with confidence.


	20. Chapter 20

_AN: Sorry, didn't mean to take so long to finish up this chapter in the saga. But here you go. And in other news - there's a Cupcake character tag now! \o/_

* * *

Kirk's plan for getting down to the planet unnoticed turned out to be absurdly simple and potentially dangerous, but Pavel wasn't about to complain. After all, his own plan – beam down on his own and hope he at least had a chance to find Greg before he was hacked to death by natives – was all he had to compare it to.

Despite Kirk's greeting grin as he came into the transporter room, Pavel knew there were some things he would have to work out with the captain after this was all over. He had stepped over the line and he knew it. Twice, even. Kirk was as informal as any Starfleet captain Pavel had ever met, but he still had the right to expect certain behavior out of his officers.

Besides, Pavel's insubordination had been a reflection of his belief that Kirk wasn't willing to risk enough to get Greg back. That was unfair, even if at the time it felt true. Kirk cared about all of his officers. All he had wanted was a feasible plan before he went down, and Pavel hadn't offered that until now.

Pavel would have to submit himself for disciplinary action when they returned to the ship. He knew that. At the same time, though...he was fine with it. Everything he said he would say again. Everything he had risked he would risk again in a moment if Greg needed him.

Kirk deserved better, perhaps, but Greg did as well.

He returned Kirk's grin with a small smile of his own, hiking the small bag of equipment he was bringing down higher up on his shoulder.

Hikaru was only a few steps behind him – Pavel heard the door sliding open again and moments later felt Hikaru's arm as it dropped over his shoulder.

"Ready to go be a hero, Pavel?"

Pavel rolled his eyes but shot Hikaru a smile. "I've been ready for two days."

"Sorry, I'll be more specific – ready to be a _living _hero?"

Behind them the door slid open again, and this time Pavel did glance back.

McCoy strolled in, a familiar black medkit slung from a strap over his shoulder. He looked around at them and nodded in greeting, casual. "We doing this?"

Pavel blinked in surprise, and glanced back at Kirk.

Kirk was obviously just as surprised. "Uh. Bones, all I asked you to do was have a bed ready for a hopefully not-too-damaged Cupcake."

McCoy moved in, passing Hikaru and Pavel without a pause. "You know the good thing about technology? Takes me about a half a second to get a bed ready."

He passed Kirk and stepped up on the transporter padd.

Kirk followed him fast. "Hold it, Bones. I'm not gonna make you go back down to that pit twice, okay? You faced those little shits once..."

"And I guess I'm gonna face 'em again." McCoy smirked, but Pavel noticed his hand was white-knuckled around the handle of his medkit. "But I don't remember you ordering me to do anything, so don't dirty up your conscience for my sake, Jim."

Kirk's voice lowered, but the transporter room was small and Hikaru and Pavel had nothing else to do but stand there and overhear.

"This isn't just another landing party, okay? It's dangerous, and those things already took a piece out of your leg. I don't want you-"

"Jim." McCoy turned to Kirk, smirk vanishing. "First, my leg's fine. Fine enough to make the trip, anyway, and since I'm the only one here who knows exactly what we're getting into, I think my feelings on the matter should hold some weight. Two..." He glanced over at Pavel. "If he's hurt as bad as he must be hurt if he can't get back to transporter range on his own, you stand a hell of a good chance of getting him back here too late. I know the kind of wounds those things leave, and he's already been down there how long?"

Kirk hesitated. He followed McCoy's gaze over to Pavel, but frowned and looked away again. "I really don't like this idea."

"I'm not singing about it myself," McCoy said with a shrug, nodding to Pavel before turning back to Jim. "But I'm right. Besides, given how often you get yourself hurt pulling fool stunts like this..."

Kirk didn't answer. He frowned at McCoy, their gazes steady as if there was something to read from all this that wasn't horribly obvious to everyone else in the universe.

"This is why I don't understand all the surprise when I said I would go down there by myself," Pavel said to no one in particular, approaching the transporter padd. "Everyone else on this ship is allowed to make grand gestures to be with the ones they love."

McCoy shot him a look, and his mouth crooked up on one side in acknowledgment of the implication.

Kirk looked at Pavel, and then back at McCoy. He cleared his throat, smirking hard after a moment as if he had to force his facial muscles to form that expression.

"I kinda doubt the-"

"He ain't wrong, Jim." McCoy said before he could finish.

Pavel smiled to himself and stepped into position on the padd. He only watched out of the corner of his eye, trying not to stare.

Kirk's smirk melted away. His eyes went wider, bright and pale blue, studying McCoy as if he'd never seen him before.

"Come on, Captain," Hikaru said with a quick 'about time' grin at Pavel as he moved in to stand on the padd beside him. "We're already stuck in the middle of one soap opera, let's save the other one until we're back on board."

* * *

In the end he never did manage to get himself out of that tree. It was the tree that kicked _him _out.

Happened bit by bit, as he tried to manage the best way to move his dizzy ass downward without blacking out. The branch beneath him that had been so sturdy through the night started to give, bit by bit.

Finally and with a ridiculously loud crack it seemed to dissolve underneath him all at once, and down he went.

Which was good, in a way, because he was starting to get a little numb and unfocused in that damned tree, and plummeting down to the ground while scraping his fucking face on every branch along the way was a hell of a good way to wake up.

But also, bad. Because he was on the ground, and if there was one of those natives anywhere close they would have heard that crack when the branch broke.

So with his face slashed and stinging and his legs at least working, if not the most steady they'd ever been, Greg hauled himself to his feet and knew he had to get the hell away from where he was.

Pasha had ordered him not to move. He said they could see him, somehow, and were coming for him. But Greg was a human target where he was.

Pasha also told him to open his communicator line and not close it for anything, so he raised his trembling arm close to his face.

"Harris to _Enterprise_," he rasped, distantly amused at how strange his voice sounded. "I don't know if anyone's actually listening to this line, but I'm gonna start moving. Just until I get to a safer place."

He lowered his arm. Keeping the channel transmitting like this meant that he wouldn't be able to receive a response, but he felt better having said something out loud.

He glanced backwards at that tree, wondering if he'd actually confess to anyone when he got back to the ship that he spent a night in a tree like a frigging owl.

He hesitated when he actually took in the tree.

The branch that had broken under him had sheared off completely and lay on the ground a foot away. He didn't know what the hell native trees on this planet were supposed to look like, but that branch didn't look anything like healthy. It was all but hollow, the broken edges thin and dry and brown. If this branch was from Earth he'd say it was dead. Long-dead, from a long-dead tree.

And...yeah, the tree itself didn't look so great either. It was mostly brown all down the trunk, and the leaves covering the branches were all dangling, limp, like they'd all dropped dead too fast to even break off.

He'd first spotted that tree in dusk in the dark woods, but he could've sworn it was a little bit stronger looking than it was now.

There was a dark patch on the ground, near where the branch lay. A stain turning the ground and underbrush a rusted brown color.

Shit. That was blood. That was his own fucking blood, drop by drop hitting the ground as he slept, not even realizing how bad he was hurt.

The ground around that dark stain was brown, cracked. Weird, since most of the ground around him was pretty damp and mossy and healthy looking.

Something was off there. Something he wasn't quite picking up on.

But screw it. Wasn't his job to figure shit out. It was his job to get back to the ship.

Pain was good for a couple of things. It woke up a drifting mind, for one. It also usually came along with a nice hit of adrenaline. Fight or flight, all that crap.

So, despite the numbness and the ache and the dried blood making his uniform pants and the ugly torn shirt he turned into bandages feel stiff and gross, when Greg ordered his feet forward they actually obeyed him.

* * *

When the third landing party from the Enterprise materialized on the surface of the planet, they were obviously done being ambushed by hostile natives. They were all in security red, all carrying oversized blasters and phasers in each hand. They appeared and stayed where they were, tense and waiting.

Each landing party that went down seemed to get attacked quicker than the last, and it was no different in this case. A shriek pierced the air from under the cover of distant trees, and almost before the glow of the transporter had faded there were figures bounding out of the forest on two sides.

The landing party didn't seem surprised. They stood their ground, not firing, barely moving, as the pack of hostiles came flying out at them.

And without a word, without a request to the ship, the transporters suddenly glowed around them again. Before the natives could reach them, before they had to fire a single shot, they were suddenly dematerializing.

And then they were gone.

The howling natives all slowed to a stop, shrieks lifting through the air and piling on top of each other, sounding almost confused.

Their eyes stayed on that space where their victims had been standing just long enough that not a single one of them noticed the fading of a second transporter glow, off to the side and right up against the line of trees.

Abruptly their shrieks rose up again, high and vibrant, echoing through the clearing like a shout of triumph.

None of them noticed four figures dart instantly into the cover of the trees and out of sight.

* * *

Security training had taught Greg a lot of good lessons. Things about strength and action, about reflex and motion and balance. But the great majority of a security guard's job wasn't about those things. A guard like Greg was expected to be brave and selfless and strong when it counted, but that wasn't supposed to be all that often.

It was like cops back on earth. Greg used to like reading crime stories when he was a kid, those old fashioned comics and thin old books about detectives and badges and solving crimes and putting bad guys in jail. Before he realized he wanted to be Starfleet, he sometimes thought about being a cop.

Thought about it like a dream, anyway. Like a fantasy, like being a football player or whatever. No self-respecting Harris kid was ever gonna even think about actually becoming a cop. If he'd've told his dad what he thought about someday being a cop his dad would've broke his jaw for him, probably.

Hell, he didn't even tell his dad he actually _read_ things now and then, just for fun.

But, the point was, when he was reading up on those crime novels he read something kind of interesting – cop movies and comics were all about action and gunshots and killing the bad guys, but in real life a cop wasn't meant to ever fire a gun at all. Most of them never did, and the ones who did never wanted to.

That carried over into security. They had the training and the phasers and everything, but the hope was that they'd never have to use them. They were there just in case, and everybody hoped that 'just in case' never actually happened.

Which was where Greg's other training kicked in. The training that was helping him the most as he dragged his feet step after step through eerily quiet alien woods.

For every minute a guard was in battle, he had at least a week of guard duty under his belt. For every day he was on planet there was another month of watching weapons lockers, pulling duty down at the usually empty containment cells. Even going on planet was usually pretty boring, standing around looking tough during negotiations or standing back and watching a still horizon while the smarter guys did the fancy work.

Being a security guard was, ninety-five percent of the time, really fucking boring. Standing at attention, staring at walls, not drifting too far because the second something actually happened you had to be ready.

A guy with any experience at the job knew the importance of being able to distract their minds without actually getting lost inside their own head.

It was that part of the job, strange enough, that was helping him the most.

His legs were numb, his stomach knotted sickly. He was parched and weak and he'd lost too much blood and it was really god damned cold.

But Greg moved step after step, minute after minute, because he didn't actually let himself pay attention to any of that. Because he knew how to distract himself just enough, send his thoughts somewhere outside his own body even as he kept alert for any nearby noises.

He meant to only go far enough to feel safe in case anyone had heard him crashing out of that tree earlier. But he realized pretty fast that if he actually stopped moving he wasn't sure he wouldn't just stop altogether. And not just his legs.

It sucked, because if people were really on their way to come get him he wasn't sure if he was going towards them or walking away or what. Maybe he was hurting himself, keeping himself from getting found.

But he didn't have any choice. The minute he stopped moving, he knew he would be out for the count. If he let himself sit down he was drop, and even if he managed to stay conscious his legs weren't gonna get him up again. Greg knew his own body pretty well after all the years of training and pushing. He knew where his limits were, and he knew damn well that he'd passed all those limits a while back.

If he did stop maybe it would be alright. Maybe they'd find him all the same before any of the aliens that had to be roaming around somewhere did. Pasha told him to stay where he was, after all.

He just couldn't.

Greg didn't know how to do much of anything, maybe, but he knew how to keep going.

And anyway...as long as there was a chance that if he stopped moving he might just lay down and die, he didn't have no choice.

He had to get back.

As long as he could distract himself, as long as he could trudge his feet step after step but see Pasha in his head instead of the trees or the bushes around him, he was better off moving.

* * *

He had only seen the briefest glimpse of the planet's natives when they landed, since the plan relied on them coming down unseen and ducking out of sight as soon as possible. Still, that glimpse was enough to keep him motivated to move fast and without complaint through the darkness of a strange forest.

The aliens might not have seen the second landing party arrive, but those shrieks they had been filling the air with seemed to follow Pavel through the silent trees.

It made him feel more urgent, somehow, as if just knowing that Greg was out there somewhere hurt wasn't enough motivation. That quick look at those alien creatures was enough to make Pavel understand the doctor's nervousness, and the fierce gashes he and Scotty had come back to the ship with.

"_Spock to landing party," _he heard, soft, from up ahead.

Pavel's own communicator was on an open channel, constantly broadcasting back to the ship the way Greg's was, so that their two signals could be tracked and they could be guided from the bridge.

"Go ahead, Spock," Kirk answered into his arm.

"_The Lieutenant is moving. Adjust your path approximately ten degrees west." _

Kirk glanced back at Pavel, but followed Hikaru when he changed their bearing and steered them on at an angle. "Done. Any indication why he's moving?"

"_Nothing specific, captain. He felt as if he were unsafe where he was." _

"Yeah, good luck finding a place that actually is safe on this hellhole," McCoy grumbled at Pavel's side.

Pavel had to stop himself from looking back just to make sure none of those thin, ragged little beasts was following them.

"I hate to say it," McCoy went on after a minute, as Kirk confirmed their new bearing with Spock (Pavel didn't need to hear it confirmed; Hikaru was just as good a pilot on the ground as in the air), "but you take away the homicidal harpies back there and this isn't much different from where I grew up."

Pavel frowned around them at the dark woods.

"You know. Usually on these planets you can tell the difference right off. The colors are different or the air is weird, or something's just _wrong_, you know? But hell." McCoy drew in a deep breath and sighed it out. "If I didn't hate this fucking place I could almost get to like it."

He was still nervous, Pavel realized. McCoy was not a particularly chatty person, especially in the middle of hostile territory.

Pavel wanted to answer him somehow, to put in some kind of comment about how he could tell the difference, or how it wasn't very much like his own childhood home at all. But he couldn't manage to find the words, and he wasn't sure if that was due to worry about the natives around them or the same fear that had gripped him for two days.

"Kid."

He looked over at McCoy.

The doctor's eyes were serious, his gaze staying straight ahead as they went. "I appreciate you outing me as a romantic back on the ship, but the truth is I'm not down here to watch out for Jim."

Pavel looked back out at the nonexistent path, the dark trees and damp brown soil around them.

"I'm not any kind of naïve," McCoy went on, slow, his voice quiet between them. "We've been on Jim Kirk's ship for a few years now, which means we've seen a fair amount of over-dramatic shit go down."

Pavel managed a faint smile.

"I've seen a lot of idiots do a lot of dumb things in the name of being brave. I've seen some cocky bastards take the most unnecessary damned risks just to play martyr, or hero." McCoy sighed again, his eyes on Jim's back. "I've seen some real bravery too, now and then, but that's more rare."

Fairly certain that he knew where McCoy was going with this, Pavel looked over, watching the doctor's solemn profile.

"Funny thing is I never even saw Harris take off. All I was focused on was getting to Scotty and getting those fuckers away from me. Heard him yelling, but I didn't even see it happening. Didn't realize what he did until we were back on the transporter padd and I could actually put thoughts together. But even though I wasn't watching when it happened doesn't mean it wasn't the most brave fucking thing I've ever seen."

Pavel drew in a breath, his smile fading.

"Those things were out for blood. Wasn't no mistaking that. But you know...it ain't even the way he took off like that to get those things away from us. That's not even the thing. The thing is, I know Greg well enough to know that unlike some dumb kid who picks a fight so he can play hero, Greg wouldn't even think about what he did as being a big deal."

Pavel's smile stirred at that, a little. "It's just his job," he agreed, since that was exactly what Greg would say about it.

McCoy nodded, looking over at him with a crooked smile and haunted eyes. "That's a really humbling thing to realize. And that..." He shrugged, lofting the medkit. "If I can't get past my own nerves and get down here to do my job when someone like that needs me, then I wouldn't be worth saving in the first place."

"Kirk to Enterprise."

Pavel looked away from McCoy as Kirk spoke.

"How we coming, Spock? Can you estimate some kind of eta for us?"

"_Perhaps four more hours, captain, if you remain at a constant pace." _

Four hours. It already felt like they had been walking for half the day.

Pavel looked out into the dimness, swallowing to think that they were still so far away. Four hours to get to Greg, and hours more to get him back into range of the ship.

He was only trying to be quiet when he spoke, but it came out sounding strangely grim. "To be honest, doctor, I don't really care why you decided to come down here. I'm only glad that you're here."

McCoy only nodded, his dark eyes on the trail ahead.

* * *

When he reached the top of the small hill that had been rising ahead of him for what felt like hours, Greg did the one thing he didn't mean to do.

He stopped.

He didn't even realize it for a minute. When he realized he'd reached the top he looked up, and surprise pushed his feet to the ground and locked them there.

It was brown.

Everything. Ahead of him, spread out down the other side of the hill and across a flat, tree-less field. No grass, no bushes. Just a big barren patch of cracked dirt. It started abruptly, and he could see on all sides of it where the grass and trees and soil simply started up again like there was some kind of invisible forcefield keeping the brown out.

It was unexpected enough that he stood there looking out until his breathing had slowed to normal. It was weird, but...his instinct was pinging at him. Weird like that tree he'd crashed in (and out of) the night before.

Down towards the middle of that flat circle of dead ground there was something interrupting the brown. Something dark and reflecting the light, something man-made.

He looked around, but the air was still and the entire planet seemed to have shut up in the last minute. Knowing he might be stepping into some kind of fucking up ambush, he started his frozen feet until he had pushed his way down the side of the hill.

He looked around as he walked across hard, dry dirt, but even the trees beyond the brown were quiet, still.

Greg slowed as he neared the object in the field, squinting down at it. If he tried to crouch or kneel down to get a better look there was no way in hell he'd be able to haul his exhausted ass back up, but he bent a little and reached out a foot to nudge it.

It was some kind of tarp. The edge of some thin black material, vinyl-like, like a tent he'd've gone camping in back home. Not Starfleet regulation.

Civilian, though, maybe. Spock had said there was a missing group from a civvie science ship. If they came down to research they might've brought tents and things.

He frowned and looked around. The tarp was obviously buried, but the ground around them didn't look disturbed. And this hard, cracked and dry ground would have showed any disturbance.

Unable to help himself (since this, after all, had been the mission Kirk wanted them to be on, finding missing people), Greg let his knees bend. He tried to just crouch, but his muscles said _fuck that _and he dropped pretty hard down on his knees.

Didn't think about how much that really fucking kind of hurt. He reached out, focused on the mission, and tugged at that edge of tarp.

Some of the dirt around it cracked and crumbled away, but it didn't reveal much. It seemed to be buried pretty deep. He looked around, frowning at the uninterrupted dry dirt around him, knowing there was something there he was missing.

He tugged at the tarp again, wondering if he could free it enough to see if anything was buried down there with it.

Didn't take much more tugging, though. He peeled at that edge of tarp, crumbling more of the surrounding dirt, and a few inches down there was a hand.

Either he was too tired tired to feel surprised or part of him had figured as much.

Didn't look like anyone who'd been dead very long. It wasn't decay or bone or anything, just a really dirty human-looking hand, sun-burnt and limp in the dirt.

Which made no fucking sense. But he looked around that field of brown and thought about the branch dropping under him earlier and landing him on his ass, and...

It_ did_ make sense.

Greg sucked in a breath and let the tarp fall back over that hand. He leaned back on his heels and looked around, seeing that field of brown way different suddenly.

Behind him there was a scrape, a sudden noise like a footstep skidding on dirt.

He wheeled around. At least he tried too - his tired muscles and awkward position basically meant he wheeled his head around and then kind of slipped and dropped on his ass when his body tried to follow.

Caught by surprise, and apparently those bastards moved quietly when there was only one of them and they weren't screaming like they did.

He tried to move, but he was long past being able to force himself. He'd been right, he realized in a wild moment as this wild-eyed alien shit came stalking towards him - once he let himself stop, he was done.

Only one of them in the end, and wasn't that fucking pathetic? Only one little runt that probably weighed less than one of Greg's legs.

And there was nothing he could fucking do about it.

* * *

_"The Lieutenant has stopped moving."_

Five words, spoken as neutrally as anything else Spock ever said, but for some reason those five words lit a panic inside Pavel's chest that he couldn't quell.

Maybe thirty minutes ago now, Spock had delivered that message. For thirty minutes Pavel had been running, ignoring any need to be silent, unaware of how near or far the other three in the landing party were to him.

Stopped moving.

He didn't know why that was bad. If Greg found a safe spot he might have simply stopped. He had to be tired, after all, and he was hurt. But no. No, he knew his Grischa too well. He knew how stubborn he was, and how strong, and how determined to be strong no matter what.

For him to simply stop moving...

They weren't too late. That was all Pavel could tell himself, over and over again, as he ran with every ounce of speed his Academy training had helped him build. They were not too late, because that was not happening. Simple as that.

"Pavel!"

He would not accept even the fear that after all the delay and doubt, they were finally down there with a plan and a path just in time for Greg to stop moving.

He had not found the solution and yelled at his captain and stayed awake for 48 hours and said goodbye to his own papa just to get to Greg too late. It was absurd, and he had too scientific a mind to believe in absurdity.

"Pavel!"

He didn't turn back or slow down. That would be his third blatant insubordination, then.

"Chekov, god damnit!"

Kirk sounded winded. He also sounded fairly panicked.

Against his every wish, Pavel slowed down. Since they weren't there too late he would take a moment, after all.

He slipped from a jog to a walk and looked back over his shoulder.

He hadn't seen Kirk so red in the face since the captain celebrated his 27th birthday trying to drink his first officer under the table. (Only McCoy, arriving to the party late after his shift, had kept him from dropping dead of alcohol poisoning by informing Kirk that Spock saying that Vulcans weren't affected by alcohol had been a fact, not a dare.)

"Jesus mother _fuck_," Kirk gasped between breaths, stooping to wheeze as Pavel moved back to him. "Just _stand _there, speed racer. Spock says..._Christ_...Spock says we're coming up on him, and as reckless as you think I am I do not let my crew go jogging into fucking danger."

Pavel frowned, but he could hear pounding footsteps behind Kirk as the others caught up, and he turned back the way he'd been going, listening and scanning the trees for any indication of what was just ahead.

Hikaru jogged up quickly, but McCoy didn't seem to be doing much better than Kirk. Pavel didn't apologize, but neither of them seemed to want him to.

Kirk sucked in a loud breath and pushed himself straight. "Hikaru, it's zorro time. Pavel, if you're coming on the front lines at least hold your damned phaser." He looked back at McCoy. "Stay back until we know it's clear."

McCoy didn't argue.

He watched Hikaru slip his sword out of its deceptively small holster, and then Pavel pulled his little-used phaser from his belt and clenched his knuckles around it.

His role was usually in coming up with theories, charting courses, conducting research. But he had killed before. He had pushed the controls to fire the missiles to destroy entire ships full of enemies.

He would fire his phaser at whatever stood between he and Greg.

Kirk grabbed his own phaser and looked around to ensure they were all ready. He nodded them on. "Quick and quiet, guys."

McCoy was a set of soft footsteps following slowly behind them as they went. Pavel kept stride with Kirk and Hikaru easily as they slipped past the next line of trees and started moving up the end of a sloping, long hill.

"Shit," Kirk murmured as they moved up that hill. "Get low near the top. We can't see what's waiting, so take it slow."

Pavel didn't answer. He tightened his grip around his phaser, unable to repress a twinge of nervousness. It was too quiet suddenly, the air still and too wide open as they moved up the hill and left the trees behind them.

Greg. He couldn't stop that thought, though he should have been focusing harder. Greg was over this hill, or over the next one. Close. Greg was close, and Pavel was finally there to get him.

He bowed his head and stooped his way up when Kirk did, and followed the captain's lead when Kirk hit his knees to push himself to the top without making himself a target for anything on the other side.

"Hang on," Kirk said, his voice barely a murmur, when they couldn't go any further without being exposed.

Pavel held himself back but it was hard. His heart seemed to be moving faster not from nerves, but from excitement. Hope.

Kirk shimmied up and peered over to the other side of the hill.

The moment Pavel heard his inhale of breath he moved, scooting up the path beside him and peeking out at whatever Kirk saw.

Greg.

Enemy.

He clenched his hand around his phaser, but Kirk reached out instantly and pushed him down by the shoulder. "Wait."

"There's only one of-"

"I said wait, ensign," Kirk all but hissed in response.

Pavel swallowed, his free hand forming a fist. He shut his eyes for a moment and ordered himself to trust his captain for as long as his self-control would allow.

Kirk peered over the hill again. His hand stayed planted on Pavel's shoulder, holding him where he was. He frowned suddenly and dropped back down beside the other two. He released Pavel with a warning look, reaching for his communicator.

"Spock. What the hell is Harris doing? Can you hear anything?"

A moment later Nyota's soft voice answered. "_Not anymore, sir. He spoke a short time ago, but no one answered and he's no longer talking."_

Kirk flipped off the communicator, brow furrowed.

Suddenly he nodded at Pavel and got to his feet, standing straight up and into full view.

Pavel didn't understand but he didn't argue. He was right on Kirk's tail as Kirk moved over the top and started moving down the bottom of the hill.

Distantly Pavel noted the strange shift in scenery, the brown dirt ground spread out in front of him. The only thing he focused on was Greg.

He was sitting on the dirt in the middle of the brown, and one of those _things _was standing over him. But even as Pavel thought to bring up his phaser and take aim, he noticed what it was that made Kirk hesitate.

The alien wasn't moving. He was just standing there. He didn't even seem to be looking at Greg. He seemed to just be waiting on...something.

It was that alien that spotted the three approaching officers first. The thing's thin body tensed, and its strange harsh face shifted. Its mouth opened, and Pavel remembered their horrible screaming cries and remembered his phaser again.

Kirk's was already out and up, faster about spotting danger than Pavel was.

But Greg's head turned in their direction, and he scrambled instantly up to his knees and raised his arms out.

"Don't shoot!"

Kirk strode out in front of the other two. His phaser didn't lower, but he didn't fire. "Harris."

Greg seemed to want to move, to get up, but he was swaying just after getting to his knees.

Pavel noticed then the red staining up the sides of his undershirt. The jagged fabric tied at his side, and down over red-soaked gashes in his pants.

Hurt.

"Captain, hang on." Greg either didn't notice himself swaying and trembling or he simply pushed past it, twisting to look back at the tense alien.

The thing looked down at him, its mouth shutting.

Greg gestured back at Pavel and Hikaru and Kirk, and, strangely, pointed his hand upwards.

The alien stared at him for a long moment.

Then it turned, and without a sound the creature started racing back towards the treeline, away from all that empty brown space.

Greg sagged.

Pavel was there in a second, before he even consciously thought about moving. His phaser hit the dirt somewhere on the way, but he hardly noticed.

"Greg!" He hit his knees in front of Greg, reaching for his arms to steady him.

Greg grinned, but his eyes were red-rimmed and his face was deathly white, and the grin didn't do a thing to quell Pavel's nerves.

"Harris, what the hell." Kirk reached them, surveying Greg for just a moment before he turned back towards Hikaru. "Get Bones," he said, soft and intent.

Pavel swallowed, trying to see through the makeshift bandages and dark uniform to see just how badly he was hurt.

Greg's eyes moved to Kirk much to slowly. "We gotta go," he said, voice as rasping and strange as it had seemed over the speakers on the ship.

"No shit. Especially if that little bastard went to get reinforcements."

"He didn't." Greg dropped back on his heels, and Pavel had to move in fast to keep his grip. "They just want us out of here."

"You telling me that thing _told _you that?"

Greg grinned unsteadily. "Can't talk. That's the problem."

Pavel heard McCoy and Hikaru as they came up fast behind him. He let Greg's arms go when McCoy pushed in between them, but as he got to his feet slowly his eyes stayed glued to Greg's face. He didn't try to see the display on the tricorder McCoy pulled out, not even when McCoy cursed under his breath and started digging frantically through his medkit.

Greg all but ignored the doctor, trying to keep focused on Kirk. "They didn't know how to tell us. Any of us, anybody who landed here. They can't talk to us, so they ended up just killing...anybody who showed up."

Kirk crouched down. "Didn't know how to tell us what?"

Greg nodded out at the field, the expanse of lifeless brown dirt. "This. This is what we do. We kill things."

Kirk frowned, but looked around.

Pavel studied Greg. His eyes were too bright - fever, maybe infected wounds - but he seemed certain of what he was saying.

Greg blinked hard, looking at Kirk with sudden intensity. "They're not like us, Captain. I don't think they're all that advanced. All they know is we keep showing up out of nowhere, and wherever we go the planet around us starts dying." He reached out an unsteady arm, pointing down a few feet away where Pavel glanced just long enough to see some scrap of black fabric on the ground. "Think that's your science team. I figure they were camped out here when the natives caught up to 'em."

Kirk moved over to that fabric scrap, crouching down.

Greg's eyes shifted over to Pavel, but he kept talking fast. "These guys kill us because they can't stop us any other way. Something about us, or just outsiders in general...something doesn't mesh right here. This place wasn't like this, but they buried those guys right there and everything started dropping dead and blowing away. Place I slept last night..." Greg's throat worked.

Something beeped, shrill, on McCoy's tricorder.

Greg talked over it, speeding up, tripping over the words. "Whole tree rotted under me. Captain, they don't deserve to get shot, they don't know what the hell we are or how to stop us except by killing us. We just gotta tell the Federation to stay away from here. It's their planet."

Kirk straightened up and turned back to Greg, his brow furrowed deep. "How the hell did you get all that out of a creature that can't even talk?"

Greg shrugged, still looking at Pavel as if he couldn't manage the feat of even turning his head. "Lotta gestures, lotta guesses." He swallowed, if possible going even more pale. "Maybe 'cause I was alone and unarmed, but that one didn't want to kill me. He wanted me to get it, you know? They just want us to leave them the hell alone."

Kirk frowned. "I don't know if the Federation-"

The tricorder squealed again, and McCoy snapped it shut and shot to his feet. "All due respect to the natives here, unless any of you remembered to pack a few liters of blood in your kits we need to get back to the ship about ten minutes ago."

Greg's eyes focused on Pavel for a moment, and he flashed a small, uneven smile, almost looking relieved.

It wasn't until they were moving through the trees under Spock's direction, Greg being all but dragged between Hikaru and McCoy and hanging on to consciousness but not even enough to move his feet, that Pavel realized why he was relieved.

He knew he didn't have much time to get the words out. He wanted Kirk to understand what he'd figured out before he passed out.

He wondered as he tore through the trees without seeing them, as he willed the men around him to move faster, if that was the same sort of urge that made Greg turn himself into a target to protect his fellow officers. That same instinct that McCoy had been so humbled by.

Was it the security officer in him, or was it just Greg? It was an odd thing to wonder about, maybe, but if he didn't let himself think of other things he would have panicked halfway through the woods back to where the ship could find them.

Then Greg stopped breathing, and Pavel couldn't wonder about anything at all anymore.

* * *

An hour into the silence, sitting beside Hikaru and staring at his red-stained hands as people walked silently back and forth passed them, Nurse Chapel emerged from the closed doors where Greg had been taken away from Pavel.

Pavel was on his feet so fast it made him dizzy - all the hours of not sleeping or eating or anything except worrying catching up to him. "What? What's happening?"

Chapel smiled faintly but it didn't reach her eyes. "Leonard said to bring this to you. It was with the lieutenant's things, in his pocket I think." She held out a small box.

Pavel reached out reflexively, uncertain.

A small, dark hinge-lidded box. Battered around the edges, scuffed at the corners from Greg's time on the planet.

Chapel spoke softly. "Leonard said to tell you that even if you don't know what it is, hang on to it. It's important."

She turned and moved back through the doors, but Pavel's eyes were on that box.

In his mind he heard his papa's voice, telling Pavel about the words Greg had asked him to teach him.

Holding his breath, strangely scared for some reason he couldn't have voiced, Pavel opened the lid of the box.

For a moment he could almost imagine himself back at home, in Russia, in his old house. Most of his mother's things were stored in their small cellar, but papa kept the most meaningful things around them in the house.

It was a very different box that held her old wedding ring. A smaller ring, to match the huge one papa still wore on his hand every day. Pavel had gone to his papa's room sometimes and looked at it, along with the pictures he kept there and the hairbrush still sitting on the dresser.

Some of papa's friends tried, back then and even now, to talk him into putting those remainders away, but Pavel understood suddenly in a visceral, deep way exactly why he kept them. He understood because the ring in that box Chapel gave him brought him back there, to his home and his family and his mama.

He had no idea how long he stood there before something nudged his arm, and he looked up to see Hikaru standing by, studying him.

Pavel held out the box.

Hikaru only glanced at it. His mouth tilted into a feeble smile. "I've seen it."

Pavel drew the box back in, reaching up and brushing at the three-toned ring with a feather-light fingertip.

"You know what it is?"

Pavel nodded. He drew in a breath and slipped the ring from the box. It was heavy and cool against his hand and he held it up for a reverent moment just to look at it more closely.

Then he slipped it onto his his ring finger. His right hand, the way they still wore them in Russia.

Hikaru took his arm, steering Pavel back against the wall, back to their chairs, back to their weight.

Minutes later Pavel realized something else and laughed, sudden and only a little bit desperate-sounding.

Hikaru turned to him. "What?"

"On the bridge, the morning before this all started." Pavel couldn't take his eyes off the metal, the way the pale sickbay light hit the three different shades of gold. "You said you hated me because my weird choices always turn out better than they should."

Hikaru blinked, then smiled. "I said you'd understand what I was talking about later."

"If you'd just said you meant Greg, I would have understood even without this." He tore his eyes from the ring and smiled over at Hikaru.

As the minutes past, Pavel's eyes stuck on the doors that were keeping Greg from him, and the ring seemed to fade from his mind just as thoroughly as the smile faded from his face.

* * *

Holy fucking _hell. _

He didn't hurt, which for some reason his brain thought was odd. But Greg had never been so fucking sore in his entire damned life, and that was saying something.

He couldn't even open his eyes for a while. He just lay there, feeling as heavy and stuck as if he was buried under concrete. Felt like every damned muscle in his body had been wrung out like a fucking dish towel.

His throat was dry like he'd been swallowing sand. His brain was telling him he was lucky, but his body sure as hell didn't feel it, and he couldn't remember why he was lucky.

He knew the smells and the sounds around him enough to figure a few things out. He was in sickbay. He'd spent a good two weeks camped out for hours a day when Pasha got stabbed by fucking Klingons, he recognized that tangy chemical small and the steady chirp of monitors and machines.

Whoever kicked his ass must have been fucking hard core, that was all he could figure.

"Hey, Harris."

He couldn't manage a jump at the sudden voice filtering into his aching, leaden world.

"I know you must want nothing more than to pass right back out, but if you can get your eyes open for a minute there's someone here who'd really appreciate it."

He recognized McCoy's drawling voice quick enough. For some reason his mind felt relieved all over again at that. Like some kind of shit had gone down with McCoy?

Hell with it.

He sucked in a breath and tried to pry his eyelids up. His eyelids told him to fuck off.

"Go on, kid. He's awake enough. Brainwaves don't lie."

A few moments later a slight, warm weight appeared against Greg's hand. "Grischa..."

He told his eyelids to cowboy the fuck up, and after a last token protest they managed to slide apart a little.

"Grischa!" Another hand joined the first, taking his arm and lifting his hand from the bed, clutching.

He had to blink a couple times, but Pasha swam into focus finally.

Greg smiled. A little twist of his mouth, at least, but it was all he could manage. He swallowed, but even that was painful enough that he didn't try to talk yet.

Pasha's eyes were way too bright. His face was strange, shadowed and pale and the skin under his eyes was smeared so dark it looked bruised. But he was fucking beautiful.

Greg had some kind of memories, anyway. Something about McCoy and Spock and Scotty on a planet somewhere, and Pasha's voice coming through a communicator from far away.

Pasha studied him hard, the way he studied his padds in the middle of solving some giant problem. He opened his mouth, and shut it, and opened it again, like he had a million things to say but they were all jumbling up on top of each other.

Finally he drew in a breath and smiled through the words he settled on. "_Vyhodi za menja zamuzh_?"

Greg blinked, surprised. Not because Pasha was speaking in Russian, but because they were words he somehow knew.

He frowned, trying to puzzle them out, and the light caught his eye as it bounced off something in Pasha's hand.

_On_ his hand.

He saw that ring and remembered most of what his mind was still trying to piece together. He was supposed to be the one saying those words. He'd chanted them over and over again back in his quarters before shit went down.

Someone gave it away, he realized, looking at the ring he'd been so scared of glittering against Pasha's pale fingers. Someone told on him.

Pasha swallowed and freed one hand from the clutch he had wrapped around Greg's. He reached out and slipped his fingertips down Greg's cheek, and again over his temple like he wanted to clear off the lines furrowing his brow.

Pasha smiled, sweet and simple like he didn't smile a whole lot. "_Vyhodi za menja zamuzh, _Grischa?"

Greg echoed the smile after a moment, easy like his face suddenly forgot how tired he was. He could feel the coolness of the ring against his hand as Pasha held it, and he didn't figure it mattered so much who asked the question.

"Yeah," he managed to say.

The word was dry and painful and it burned up his throat, but it was fucking worth it.

* * *

Kirk came by to fill Greg in on how things had gone after he passed out like a fucking sap. The Federation wasn't too happy to have to close the book on their missing people, but Kirk said he just told it to Pike the way Greg told it to him - wasn't the aliens' fault that they weren't advanced enough to talk. They were defending their home the only way they could.

In the end it was a moot point, since the very existence of those natives made the whole thing a Prime Directive nightmare. End result being that nobody from any Federation planet in the universe was gonna show their face on that planet again. At least not for a few thousand years, until those strange little wild men started shooting rockets into space.

It felt good. Greg admitted that much to Pasha after Kirk left. Felt like he didn't just help the guys in the same uniforms as him, but managed to maybe help out those aliens. They killed some people, maybe, but so had a lot of good people who were protecting their homes.

Pasha couldn't seem to stop smiling, not since Greg first got out that first painful word after waking up. Greg sure as hell understood it, and if he wasn't ready to sleep for a thousand years he'd've been grinning just as big.

"He has another surprise for you," Pasha said at one point, nodding out as if Kirk had just left. "But it can wait until you're back on your feet."

Maybe another citation, Greg figured, squeezing Pasha's hand. Maybe he'd earned one keeping the landing party alive.

"Luckily you'll be back on your feet before too long." McCoy sounded almost cheerful as he appeared - he'd been in and out since Greg woke up - holding a padd in his hand. "Infection's all gone, your scratches and scrapes are healing pretty well. I'm gonna keep you on the IV overnight to keep you from crumbling into dust for want of water, but come morning your ass is out of here."

"Really?" Greg wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed. Sure as hell seemed like there should be more wrong with him than that.

"Yep. Don't get the wrong idea, Greg - you beat the odds surviving long enough for us to find you, much less to get back to the ship. You lost enough blood that I was worried about organ failure and brain damage, even once I knew you'd live. You got off lucky but don't take it lightly."

Okay. Yeah. That was more like it. Greg swallowed and grinned shakily. "You know me, doc. I'm all about following doctor's orders."

"Good." McCoy glowered at him, but relaxed after a minute. His eyes went to Pasha. "Don't suppose there's any chance you'd follow orders and get some sleep before you collapse?"

Pasha seemed pale and shadowed all over again. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Fine, we'll bring you a cot. And it ain't open for discussion, kid. You pass out on your own or I'll hypo your ass."

Pavel nodded, his eyes on Greg.

McCoy patted Greg on the arm and moved back around the bed towards the door. "Someone'll bring the cot by, and you'll get checked on now and then, but other than that you two are on your own for the night."

"Thanks, doc. Oh, shit!"

McCoy turned instantly. "What? What's wrong?"

"No, nothing. I just realized..." He grinned. "Pasha asked me."

"Asked you what?"

Greg held up his hand - Pasha hadn't let him go for more than a few seconds at a time since he woke up - to show the ring. "He asked me," he said again. "So you and Hikaru won the bet after all."

McCoy frowned but only for a second. He looked at the ring, and at Greg, and then he grinned so hard it made him look like a different person. "Well, hot damn."

Greg managed a faint laugh as the doc tore off with new enthusiasm - going to collect his bet, probably.

"They made bets about..."

Greg looked back at Pasha. "I already made 'em feel like shit about it, it's cool."

Pasha smiled, but it was uneven. "Did you tell everyone on the ship about this except me?"

"Just them. Well, just McCoy. Wanting his advice and all. He's the one that blabbed to Sulu." Greg toyed his fingers through Pasha's, smiling at the feeling of the ring against his knuckles. "And your dad. And I guess technically that guy who made the ring, Yudashkin or whoever."

"I'm sure papa told most of the village, of course," Pasha said, still in a strange, fake-happy kind of way. "And as much as I love Hikaru there is no secret safe with him, so doubtless most of the ship knows by now."

"Does it matter?" Greg studied him, trying to figure out what was wrong. "I guess if you'd said no it would have sucked, but..."

Pasha's smile faded a little until it looked sad, but at least real. "I was never going to say no, Grischa. And you didn't need to have papa or this ring or any Russian words."

"I think I knew that," Greg said, dropping his head to the pillow and smiling to think of how fucking scared he'd been. "I got scared," he even admitted out loud, "but just...over the same shit you always tell me not to think about. Me being a big dumb shithead and all."

Pasha's eyes flashed.

Greg kept going before he could say anything. "But you're starting to get through to me, I guess, because even when I was scared I still...I knew things would be fine. I knew you weren't going anywhere." He squeezed Pasha's hand, but his strength was starting to fade and he could feel it. "I know you don't need anything fancy. But I want you to have it. And...you like it, right? I mean..." He dragged a fingertip over the twining lines of the ring.

Pasha's smile returned and he looked down at their hands. "If someone had asked me what sort of ring I would want most in the universe, I wouldn't have thought to describe this. But this would have been the true answer."

Sounded like a yes to Greg. He grinned sleepily, his eyelids getting heavy again. "Is it weird," he asked, "that after that planet and thinking I was gonna die and almost actually dying and everything, all I feel is just really fucking happy?"

"No." Pasha's voice was strange, thick. He moved suddenly, releasing Greg's hand and climbing right onto the bed beside him.

Greg opened eyes he hadn't meant to close, rewarded by the familiar sight of Pasha's curls under his chin, Pasha's lean body curling in against him like he wanted to wrap Greg all around him and never get free.

He managed to make his arms work, to slide around Pasha and hold on to him. He was weak, but he wouldn't ever be too weak for that.

Pasha's breathing was unsteady, fast. He buried his face against the sheets over Greg's chest.

"It isn't strange at all," he murmured, though Greg barely heard him with his face buried and Greg's head starting to turn to cotton as his body kept hauling him stubbornly back to sleep.

Pasha didn't sound happy. Not at all. But maybe the way he understood Greg's being happy, Greg understood that. There was more than one kind of happy, after all. Besides, Greg had been there before. He had sat in a chair beside a sterile sickbay bed and watched Pasha's eyes open for the first time after his operations and felt so fucking full of happiness that he couldn't even smile.

Seemed like a contradiction, but it wasn't.

And when Pasha gave up his own control laying there against Greg, when he started crying right there into Greg's chest so damned hard it made the bed shake...Greg understood that, too.

* * *

end


End file.
